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WAR LETTERS 
FROM FRANCE 



WAR LETTERS 
FROM FRANCE 



EDITED 
BY 

A; DE LAPRADELLE 

AND 

FREDERIC R. COUDERT 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK LONDON 

1916 



.-•^ 



rv 



-^ 



COPTBIGHT, 1916, BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Printed in the Unit ed States of America 

FEB 26* 1916 

©aA420915 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. At the Front 3 

II. In the Hospital 53 

III. In the Heart of the Country 79 

IV. The Future 87 

V. Last Letter 105 



PREFACE 



TO A FRENCHWOMAN IN AMEEICA 

WE used to meet to read our news from France ; 
the letters which we had received ourselves 
and those which our friends had received, or perhaps 
some touching passages copied from a friend's letter 
by a sympathetic hand. Sometimes there were brief 
cards from the front, hastily penciled between two 
alarms ; sometimes there were long missives written 
in the enforced leisure of the hospital, in tottering 
strokes with the feeling of langorous repose in their 
tepid ink. There were letters from mourners, too, 
bordered in broad black lines and written in large 
determined strokes ; and some whose telltale pages 
still kept the trace of tears. There were messages of 
grief in which the stricken heart of wife or sister 
strove in vain to reach or to maintain the supreme 
heights of a mother's anguished calm. We read and 
re-read these touching letters. We were French, and 
it seemed as though they were written to us, to whom- 
ever they were addressed. We made a common fund 
of them, the better to appreciate their noble courage 
and hope. And when our American friends, finding 
us after the reading more melancholy and yet more 

vii 



PREFACE 

confident, bowed down with grief but still sustained 
in pride, asked hesitatingly, "What news?" our only 
reply was to hand them the letters which had arrived 
on the week's steamer. 

Our American friends, too, found letters from 
France in their mail. We lent them ours and they 
offered us theirs in return. Among them were letters 
from Frenchmen at the front and in the hospitals, 
but oftener letters of officials in the service of their 
fatherland or from Americans in France in the ser- 
vice of humanity. We read these letters with great 
interest and wished to copy them. But the Americans 
in America are more practical than the Frenchman 
in America and much more practical than the French- 
man in France. "Why copy these letters?" said 
one American friend. "Print them and publish them 
for the benefit of your compatriots, the old men and 
the women and children who are suffering the torments 
of this war." Your kind heart kindled immediately 
at this suggestion: you begged our letters of us. 
And when you beg, madam — is it always so or only 
when you beg for France.^ — one cannot, one dare 
not refuse. 

What will our correspondents say? They thought 
they were writing for our eyes alone. What re- 
proaches may they not heap on us when they see 
that we have given to the public their private mes- 
sages without more alteration than the elimination 

viii 



PREFACE 

of a few details of too personal or too insignificant 
a nature to be printed? Have we the right to allow 
these self-revelations of our friends, made in the un- 
constraint of privacy, to pass from hand to hand 
among strangers? "Yes," you replied, "for out of 
all these revelations of courage, of suffering, of hope, 
there comes one single great revelation — ^the heart of 
France. And the portrait of the France that we see 
in these letters is all the more true, all the more faith- 
ful, as it is painted from life, without constraint or 
pose, caught without warning and left without re- 
touching. Moreover this portrait of France is not 
theirs or ours to keep. In this crisis, when every- 
one is offering his all to the fatherland, how can 
they keep for themselves any part of their experi- 
ence — that is, any part of the experience of France — 
France, our country which asks nothing but justice, 
has nothing to fear from truth?" 

From the moment of your response, I was the 
accomplice of your purpose. I gave you the best 
of my letters. I begged others, even perhaps to the 
point of indiscretion. You were persuasive; and 
taught by you, I became exacting, some even said 
tyrannical. The precious booty was carefully in- 
ventoried, catalogued and classified. There were the 
letters of the fighters and the wounded, letters to 
relatives and friends, letters still more sacred — for 
have you not coaxed from me even the letter of a 



PREFACE 

little child? There were letters from scholars, from 
artists, from simple honest people. Frenchmen and 
Americans; letters from the front and from the 
rear; letters from the hospital and from the hearth- 
stone; letters from the country and from the city. 
They have all been sorted, translated, annotated by 
friendly hands with the delicacy of touch appropri- 
ate to pages which record in suffering and sympathy 
such noble wealth of courage, pride and undying 
hope. 

We have taken rigorous pains not to alter the 
slightest phrase. These letters are the spontaneous 
testimony to the moral grandeur of a nation: and 
the testimony is not revised, it is simply received. 
This is not a work of literature, but a tribute to 
humanity. In these few pages, suffering, courage 
and hope speak their simple language. And it would 
be unpardonable in me, if, after this explanation of 
your charitable purpose, I were any longer to keep 
those who are anxious to share in the message of 
these letters from listening to their sincere and 
touching words. 

If we put the seashell to our ear, we hear the 
eternal murmur of the infinite ocean. Have we not 
reason to believe that from a few simple letters we 
can hear the heartbeat of a nation? 

A. DE Lapradelle 

July 14, 1915. 



I 

AT THE FRONT 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 



AT THE FRONT 

EARLIEST LETTERS 

ON the eighth of September a troop of soldiers 
were retreating from the north. Up to the 
very environs of Paris their confidence and 
hope remained unshaken. An infantry sergeant 
writes : 

Our retreat as far as Provins has been exhaust- 
ing: marches and counter-marches, engagements, et 
cetera, and the Germans chasing us hard all the time 
to prevent our crossing the Oise, and then the Aisne, 
and then the Marne, I do my duty through it all. 

On the ninth of September, the cavalry sergeant 
A. F. writes from Alsace: 

We have been hearing the enemy's cannon fre- 
quently. We all have the greatest confidence. We 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

are more than ever convinced of the success of 
our arms, the final victory that shall crown our 
efforts. In spite of our fatigues we shall conquer in 
the end. 



On the eighth of September, 1914, a lieutenant 
writes from Alsace: 

Our unit, composed entirely of reservists, as well 
as the whole division to which it belongs, was rapidly 
assembled, and thanks to the fine spirit animating 
every man, we were able to start immediately for the 
firing line. We entered Alsace in order to cooperate 
in the movement directed against Strasburg. The 
movement, as you know, failed. We had to retreat. 

During this retreat, foot by foot, there was no 
weakening of the endurance of the troops. 

In this movement my battery took part in a skir- 
mish and in a very violent engagement in which the 
number of Germans lost amounted to a high figure. 
During eight days of struggle we took only two or 
three hours' rest a night. The morale of our troops 
has been excellent, and these early affairs show that 
our reserve troops may prove a useful factor in the 
battles to come. Retiring to recover from our losses 
and get some rest, we have resumed our advance. 

4 



AT THE FRONT 

Little by little we are regaining the lost territory in 
the region of the Vosges. 

Here the letter was stopped by the receipt of 
marching orders. It continued a little later with 
the following vivid descriptive passage: 

The flames of a village destroyed by shell fire, a 
livid moonlight and a terrific storm, such were the 
precursors of our entrance this morning into a pretty 
village of the Vosges, where a dozen houses were 
gutted, burned or totally demolished by shells. 
Chickens were pecking at the door-sills of the de- 
serted houses. That is war! Our men might have 
been put in bad humor by all this. But no ! Their 
witty remarks cheered the situation. They are laugh- 
ing and chatting now, while the German bombs are 
falling not far from us, whistling through the air 
with metallic shrieks, followed by frightful explo- 
sions. Our men are getting used to this music of a 
special style. 

But soon the advance was stopped and the soldiers 
intrenched. The letter continues September 30: 

For the last ^Ye days we have made no advance, 
being busily engaged in intrenching positions which 
seem to be impregnable. When we halt we have a 
chance to rest and we have taken full advantage of 

5 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

these five days of rest with their beautiful sunny 
weather to get slicked up a bit. It is a picturesque 
scene, this taking a bath between your trunk on the 
left (if you can call our little kit-case with its sup- 
ply of necessary toilet articles a trunk) and your 
uniform on the right, with the revolver within easy 
reach to seize in a jiffy if the alarm is sounded. But 
once cleaned up and dressed in fresh linen what a 
joy it is to stretch out on the grass in the sun with- 
out thought of time! For we sleep at any moment 
and so peacefully. Suddenly a light touch on the 
shoulder: "Lieutenant!" A man stands before you 
with his heels together, and with a smile hands 
you a bit of paper: "March during the formation 
of the Echelons, direction 2. . . . !" We are up 
with a jump and get our uniforms buttoned. A crisp 
order and the sleepers are on their feet and on their 
horses. The horses start with a scratch and a 
scramble, the camp is broken. The battery wakes 
up too. We are feeding our ogres — modern ostriches 
that swallow powder and copper voraciously with an 
incredible iron digestion. Then all panting and smok- 
ing after their deadly attack on the enemy these 
monstrous beasts stop and give us a new period of 
repose. 

The soldiers spent their period of repose talking 
with the inhabitants who by the Mayor's proclama- 

6 



AT THE FRONT 

tion had remained in the villages that had just been 
evacuated by the German rear guard. 

The good woman in whose house our lieutenant 
was quartered told him the following story of the 
occupation : 

The worthy old lady with a black cap on her 
white locks, her face lighted by the flame of the 
wood fire burning on the hearth, keeps up a tireless 
flow of anecdote, while the little granddaughter at 
her side listens with wide open mouth. This woman 
seems to me to personify the entire French race, 
gifted with a good share of commonsense and with 
intelligence not entirely devoid of malicious roguish- 
ness. In language filled with an imaginative quality 
she describes the departure of her three sons and her 
two sons-in-law — all reservists. From two of these 
men she has received no word since the war began, 
and when one speaks of them a shadow steals over 
her face giving it that stamp of grandeur which 
grief heroically borne impresses. She told me about 
the conversations she had with the Germans many 
of whom could speak French; how insufferable and 
naive they were in their arrogance. Then she told 
of their retreat and the sudden arrival at a gallop 
of two little chasseurs, blue as the summer sky, plain 
brave little chasseurs! "What a pity you are on 
horseback," she said. "Why, mother?" "Because I 
should like to kiss you." "Don't let a little thing 

7 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

like that stop you," they cried, and were on the 
ground in a minute. "What a good kiss I gave 
them, monsieur; it was as if one of my own boys 
had come back. Then amid cheers and flowers they 
rode off toward the forest with a squadron of ten, 
on the track of the last Uhlans who had left the 
village two hours before. We never saw them again." 
Isn't that the very soul of France? 

Between the Marne and the Aisne Sergeant A. H. 
writes to his uncle on September 26, 1914: 

The retreat is over and the offensive resumed at 
Provins. We are twelve kilometers west of Rheims, 
facing the enemy's center which is making a fine re- 
sistance. Their men are fighters and they are well 
led. I have seen them hold their ground for hours 
at a stretch in the driving rain, which shows that 
their morale and their courage are good. Our re- 
servists who arrived yesterday and were incorpo- 
rated with the regulars have held firm under the 
baptism of shells and grape-shot. 

On the twenty-eighth of September, 1914, J. T., 
a very quiet man in ordinary life, writes the follow- 
ing excited letter, without superscription of date or 
place : 

Courage good — always on my feet — ^bullets 
through my coat twice — covered with the dirt 

8 



AT THE FRONT 

plowed up by shells — ^but as yet uninjured. Will 
tell you perhaps some day the tragic details. They 
are glorious and sublime. We are bearing every- 
thing with absolute confidence in our victory. Vic- 
tory ! That was the word on our lips when we parted 
at Paris. Let us repeat it, never forgetting the men 
who have fallen. If I don't come back you know 
that I shall have done my duty. 

And the writer kept his word. Wounded by a 
bursting shell in January, he was taken to the hos- 
pital at Lyon. The wound was slight and he could 
write on the twenty-sixth of March: 

I am going back to my place in the orchestra 
seats. 

J. D., who has not had a chance to wash for two 
weeks, who sleeps on the ground, and has his ears 
continuously filled with the roars of cannon and 
musketry, declares with simplicity in a letter of 
September 26, 1914: 

I love this life of bivouac though the stormy 
nights are hard. What I like most about it is being 
in the free air and having a feeling of unforeseen 
danger, the sense of uncertainty and suspense. When 
the cannon is still at night, I hear the groans and 
the death rattle of the wounded who have not been 
picked up in front of the trenches facing the enemy. 

9 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

Our recent victories have strengthened our soldiers' 
confidence until now they are regular war dogs who 
don't interrupt their cooking when the shells rain 
around them — ^not until the pieces fall into the kettle. 
Still the war is hard and they are waging it against 
us without mercy or humanity. Quite often the 
Prussians dispatch our wounded soldiers with a lance 
thrust or a blow with the butt of a musket. I know 
what I'm talking about for I have seen it. 

On the fifth of October, 1914, F. writes from Fou- 
concourt in the department of the Somme : 

The horrible rain of iron and steel that hundreds 
of infernal machines are pouring on us every day 
cannot dampen our courage. It is a grand thing 
to fight for a holy cause like this of France. In spite 
of forty continuous days of battle in the Vosges and 
in Picardie, in spite of forty nights passed mostly 
in icy weather under the naked stars, in spite of 
hunger, rain and forced marches, and in the midst 
of horrors, I find mj^self admiring the sublime for- 
ests of the Vosges, the picturesque villages, and the 
gay little houses of red brick. 

Another soldier writes to his parents on the seventh 
of October, 1914: 

On reading my letter over I see that I have for- 
gotten to tell you the best news of all. The general 

10 



AT THE FRONT 

in command of our Army Corps has made special 
mention of our Battery in the general orders and has 
nominated the captain for the Legion of Honor. 

At the beginning of the warfare in the trenches, 
which the French trooper copied from the German 
army, J. B. was working as a digger generally dur- 
ing the night or in the foggy weather. On October 
11, 1914<, he writes: 

Our intrenchments are composed of trenches for 
the riflemen standing up, and for machine guns flush 
with the ground, all connected by cross-galleries lead- 
ing to sleeping quarters, to rooms for the care of the 
wounded, to subterranean telephone stations, to caves 
for provisions — in a word a whole subterranean bar- 
racks. Our "seventy-fives" are accomplishing mar- 
vels. 

C. writes: 

We have had a severe test in Belgium. Only 126 
out of 256 are left in our company and not a single 
captain in the regiment. . . . For exactly twenty- 
one days we have been living like moles, underground, 
solidly intrenched on three hills, only eight or nine 
hundred meters from the enemy. 

Lieutenant G. in a letter written to reassure his 
parents cannot refrain from expressing his wonder 
at the fairy-like spectacle presented by Autumn in 
the Vosges: 

11 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

The woods are varicolored. A green meadow, a 
large white mansion with broad fa9ade and red roof, 
a garden in which two roly-poly little chaps are 
playing, all set against the tawny and flashing golds 
of the forest, make an idyllic picture. One would 
think oneself far removed from anything like war, 
if it were not for the fact that two hundred meters 
further on one reaches a hamlet of ten or fifteen 
houses with but a single one standing intact. Stray 
hens were pecking here and there. A shutter was 
pounding lugubriously. A nauseating odor exhaled 
from the ruins, and side by side on a manure heap 
a cow eviscerated by a shell was staring with its 
empty eyes at a rooster crowing his deafening cock- 
a-doodle-do to the noonday sun. Life and death 
side by side. In other villages where there are a 
few houses still standing one gets the same impres- 
sion. In the midst of the ruins, even under the fire 
of the Prussian cannons, which are beginning again 
to pour forth destruction, poor folks have come 
back to clean their houses and get in their hay^ 
Life and death side by side ! Indefatigable, like ants 
when their hill is destroyed, the men begin to build 
anew. Is it not a token of hope for the future of 
our fatherland.'* 



There is such literary charm in these simple let- 
ters of men who frankly speak their noble thoughts, 

12 



AT THE FRONT 

that they seem hardly inferior to this beautiful letter 
of a young but well-known writer, Louis Madelin, 
now Captain Madelin, the historian of Danton and 
Fouche, and author of the history of the French 
Revolution, which has been recently crowned with 
the first grand Gobert prize by the French Academy. 
From Verdun, one of the gates of France which the 
Germans are especially anxious to break down. Cap- 
tain Madelin writes on the fifth of November, 1914: 

From the day when the admirable courage of the 
Belgians and the opportune movement of General 
Joffre defeated their rapid drive, the Germans' hope 
of victory was forever gone. Very slowly, to be 
sure, but very steadily our grand army is forcing 
them back, and our enemy's main task now is to 
assure a safe line of retreat. I say, '^our grand 
army," for it is true that, after certain mistakes 
due to inexperience, our soldiers have become the 
same grand army that their fathers were, that oxjLt 
fathers were. They lack nothing of their mettle, 
their good humor, their patriotic faith, their martial 
spirit, and at the same time they adapt themselves 
wonderfully to the modern tactics, to the patient, 
tenacious plan of their general and chief, which re- 
quires unfailing steadfastness. 

I get letters from the front [as if he were not at 
the front himself]. I have with the colors three 
brothers, two brothers-in-laws, three nephews, eigh- 
teen to nineteen years old, and these men are soldiers 

13 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

of all grades in every rank of the army. They write 
letters fairly brimming with courage and zeal. Some 
of them have been wounded, but they returned as 
soon as possible to the firing line. One of my 
brothers took some Alsatian villages. He saw the 
colonel and five out of six of the captains of his 
battalion of Chasseurs fall. The youngest and sole 
surviving captain, he took command of what was 
left, led it from the Vosges to the Marne, enforced 
marches of forty-five kilometers a day, keeping its 
morale intact and losing not a single man. After 
fighting like a lion on the battlefield of the Marne 
he received his fourth galoon, richly deserved, from 
the hands of the general of the army corps. He 
wrote me a charming letter from the trenches in the 
North, in which he said that his soldiers (like all 
the rest) were accomplishing prodigies of valor. 
Another of my brothers, on the staff of one of the 
corps, dispatched with a message to a regiment of 
cavalry, found the regiment without colonel or 
major. He put himself at the head of the troops 
and hustled a strong force of German infantry. I 
have a little devil of a nephew who enlisted at the 
age of eighteen and five days later was sent to the 
front. He fought like a demon with the light in- 
fantry on the Marne and the Aisne, and when his 
shoulder was broken by a bursting shell he begged 
the doctors to heal it quickly so that he could return 



AT THE FRONT 

to the front. Eighteen years old! There's your 
type of volunteer that shows what a generation we 
have in reserve, and with what spirit they will march 
to reconquer lost ground. All my life long I shall 
remember the first night of my command of a 
post in the Woevre, where I used to walk with my 
men, the citizens and fathers of the region, every one 
of them ready when called on to give his last drop 
of blood for the fatherland. 

You know how for the last three weeks the Germans 
have been spreading the news that Verdun is be- 
sieged, taken, destroyed. It is one of our favorite 
jokes here. Whenever any one of us is going to 
Verdun we tell him that it is useless to start, seeing 
that Verdun is destroyed. But the Germans seem 
to make their countrymen swallow any kind of story. 
Yesterday I heard a German prisoner being examined 
in the office of the colonel to whose staff I am at- 
tached. The fellow had been before Verdun for 
eight weeks, and yet he stupidly persisted in his 
assertion that Verdun was captured. I cannot find 
words to express the absolute confidence of our men 
in the final success of our arms. Even during those 
terrible weeks when General Joffre tested their faith 
to its utmost there was no wavering. Equally inde- 
scribable are the spirit of genial comradeship and of 
self-sacrifice. We would all devote ourselves to 
death, we would even devote our young sons to death, 

15 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

if thereby we could unite Alsace-Lorraine to France 
in six months or twelve months or sixteen months, 
or in any number of months. I am in the best of 
health and spirits. 

Then follows a line in which we get a glimpse of 
the secret thought of one of those Frenchmen who 
are unjustly accused of wishing or having wished for 
a war of revenge, whereas in reality they were grow- 
ing ever more convinced that France would never 
assume the responsibility before history of bringing 
on such a war. 

I see the dream which I cherished in my childhood, 
but which I had begun to despair of ever seeing 
realized, now coming true. 



From Mor court in the department of the Somme 
on the seventh of November, 1914, F. describes the 
warfare of the moles: 

Imagine the life that our soldiers are leading at 
the present moment; eight days and nights at a 
stretch, sometimes even more, in the trenches. And 
these men, who are sometimes only eighty meters 
distant from the Boches,^ have to be provisioned. 
You see the constant danger to which our reservists 



lA slang term applied to the Germans by the French 
soldiers in the trenches. 

16 



AT THE FRONT 

and even our territorials^ are exposed. One must 
confess that our chasseurs are inspired with wonder- 
ful courage. 

The first of November there was a sudden attack. 
We arrived near midnight before a village in which 
seven or eight houses were occupied by the enemy. 
We took the houses one by one by bayonet charges, 
by mining and by cannon. For three days and nights 
we stood attack after attack from the enemy. It 
is the most terrible conflict that I have ever seen. 
We made hundreds of prisoners, and picked up the 
wounded whom they quite generally abandoned on 
the field. At least four out of every ten spoke French. 
Many of them were not more than seventeen or eigh- 
teen years old, had seen no military service, and 
seemed in a state of great demoralization. 

Shall we ever return? What does it matter? We 
march on. Some fall, others advance, and the fright- 
ful drama continues to unroll before the eyes of the 
dazed nations. 

From day to day the troops grew more inured 
to war. On the fourteenth of November, 1914, Lieu- 
tenant L. G. tells this amusing story: 

The Boches came to visit us, bringing a convoy; 



lA reserve force of citizens corresponding roughly to the 
German Landsturm. 

17 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

of wagons to take away the food which we were 
expected to leave behind us on our retreat; the 
food that they took away in those same wagons con- 
sisted of corpses cut to pieces by our "seventy-fives." 
A week later to the day we returned their visit. But 
they failed to duplicate our politeness. They didn't 
send us back home. Truly their Kultur still lacks 
something in refinement. 

Sometimes there is a touch of bitterness noticeable 
in the letters of the inen at the front who find their 
exploits not quite sufficiently appreciated in the 
official communications. 

The day before yesterday they did us the honor 
of sending us an official communication. We had 
been in a fight, had seen loaded ambulances going to 
the rear, had crossed woods filled with corpses and 
passed ravaged farms; and we said to each other, 
"What a battle it has been!" No wonder we were 
somewhat astonished to read in our official communi- 
cation, "Situation unchanged in the Lorraine and 
in the Vosges." 

On Thursday the Bodies stirred a bit. They 
came to see what we were doing. We taught them 
the pas de quatre and we played them a pretty tune 
for it. They learned their lesson quickly. Two 
hundred of them were left on the field. It was not 
much and yet the official report simply announced: 

18 



AT THE FRONT 

"The Germans attacked our outposts between Bla- 
mont and Baccarate, and their attack was completely 
stopped." In reality they were thrown violently 
back on Blamont. 

Do not imagine that the soldier is bored. He has 
his friends and his sweetheart. 

Sweethearts! Don't be astonished. Their names 
are Gaby, Madelon and Sylvia. Gaby is a little per- 
son, plump, with an odor of wild cherry about her. 
I never spend more than ten minutes or a quarter of 
an hour with her. Sylvia is more slender and frail. 
She smells of the autumn heather and I talk with 
her for fifteen or twenty minutes. As for Madelon, 
she is a grand lady in her splendid brown dress with 
gold trimmings. She is very cultivated, too, and I 
spend twenty-five minutes or half an hour with her. 
Gaby, Sylvia and Madelon are — pipes. During the 
long anxious hours of suspense one hardly knows 
what to do. It is impossible to read or write, for 
one has to be ready to start at the first signal. So 
we smoke our pipes. One of my men carved Gaby 
for me from a branch of wild cherry. Madelon and 
Sylvia were presents from my subordinate officers. 
So much for my sweethearts. As for my friend he 
is a very devoted personage, very silent and always 
with me. He lies at my feet with his honest brown 
eyes fixed on me until he drops asleep. He is a 

19 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

wonderful scout and guide. Moose is his name — 
a black and yellow water dog who got himself 
adopted on the tenth of September and has never 
left me since. 



From time to time interesting events happen. J. F. 
writes from the advanced trenches on November 30, 
1914, telling how the coffee, which was generally 
late, arrived a day in advance : 

Ah, the fine surprise ! It was brought by a Boche 
who had got lost in the fog. It was a regular god- 
send. We gulped down the "juice" with glee, we 
even gave the Boche himself some. Then two men 
and a corporal led him to the colonel's quarters. 

After an excursus on strategy offered with a 
layman's modesty. Lieutenant L. turns to poetry and 
pens the following: 

NOCTUENE. 

The moon steals softly o'er the vast gray sky. 
And throws along the trench its shadow lean. 
Where brave men, scornful of the shrapnel, lie, 
Their bed a truss of straw, their roof a screen. 
Before each section lies the scanty guard. 
The heights above are black with thicket walls. 
Past rick and windmill looms the huge facade 
Of the cathedral, dumb till vengeance calls. 

20 



AT THE FRONT 

Sharp from the crest a sudden fusillade 
That spreads along the front in enfilade ! 
The rattling musketry and whistling lead 
Wake us to wait in calm restraint, until 
A hidden cannon from its earthy bed 
Shatters the living air — and all is still.^ 

IN THE TRENCHES, December 7, 1914. 

"1914'* 

Within his palace sat the Emperor, 
Worn thin and whetted sharp by the grim Fate 
That rules the issue of this troubled age. 
Hoping to banish thus his deepening gloom, 
He gazed upon a map which showed the World. 
Forth from his eyes there flashed a gleam of pride 
As soon as he had passed his Empire's bounds. 
He looked upon it all, and cried with joy — 
"The World — the Universe — shall be my prey," 
But his eyes faded, and he knit his brows. 
His heart was wrung with unaccustomed care. 
With haughty gesture, then, he took the map, 

1 La lune glisse dans le champ du grand ciel gris, 
EUe eclaire en passant le fond de la tranch6e, 
Ou nous sommes rest^s meprisanti les obus, 
De la paille pour lit at pour toit, une claie. 
Un petit poste git devant chaque section, 
Sur la Crete, de noir buissons. Dans I'intervalle, 
Une meule, un moulin. A droite, a rhorizon, 
Muette, jusqu'au chatiment, la cathedrale. . , • 

De la Crete soudain part une fusillade. 

Puis, gagnant tout le front des feux en enfilade, 

Et chacun se redresse a leur crepitement 

Les balles sifflent, claquent. Mais nous, Impassibles, 

Attendons qu'un seul de nos canons invisibles 

Ebranle Fair meurtri d'un long dechirement. 

21 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

But, shaken through with passion, let it fall, 

"The Universe/' said he, "shall soon be mine. 

But not until I shall have crushed forever 

The legions of the Czar; while, as for England, 

I'll drive her to the utmost ends of earth. 

With her, Japan shall be quite blotted out. 

Leaving no sign to meet my ocean path. 

Austria and France had both been brought to naught. 

The French seemed weary of their silent woe; 

Three weeks will be enough to throttle them. 

Accounts with all the rest will soon be settled, 

The English and the Russians, whom we scorn. 

My faithful Prussians quickly shall enslave; 

My power will overtop Napoleon's, 

For treacherous Albion I shall bring to earth. 

And the Cossacks, the Czar thinks none can crush. 

Shall serve as targets for my great Krupp guns. 

The French shall find some grace in my disdain. 

For 'tis my wish to rule the Universe 

From Paris as my Empire's capital. 

Greater than Charlemagne shall I be known, 

For to the Continents, all overspread 

With Germany, and bowed beneath her yoke, 

America will easily be joined. 

The whole round world shall have my whim for law, 

And over all its races, cowed and chained. 

Shall float my eagle, with its sable wings.'* 

He spoke, and over Europe, half asleep. 

Let loose the greatest cataract of blood 

That History's page has e'er blushed to record. 

To block the road whereby he sought his goal, 

A little folk set up a scrap of paper. 

He answered only: "Punish them straightway!'* 

But now, to the amazement of the world. 

This little folk took up the gage of war. 



AT THE FRONT 

Thus by one act keeping their plighted faith. 

And strengthening the bonds of the Allies, 

While Belgian soil became a Prussian grave. 

In vain the Emperor poured forth his troops. 

Our own, submerged a moment by their flood. 

Took heart from Belgium's heroic stand. 

And barred the way to Paris 'gainst the foe. 

Von Kluck let slip the prize of victory, 

Reft from him by the arrogant disdain 

Nursed in the bosom of the Kaiser's heir. 

They scarce had time to flee on every side, 

Shielded by ramparts built of comrades slain. 

In vain these modern Vandals spent their fury 

Against the fabric of our sacred fanes. 

For, as they fell, our glorious Cathedrals — 

Rheims and Louvain — sounded the call to arms ; 

And from the foeman's guns the hail of iron 

Fell impotent against a living wall. 

'Mid all the bloodshed, on the rim of morning. 

Appears the rising sun of Victory. 

And all our souls, after our days of darkness, 

Are kindled into flame by its glad rays. 

For, after giving Austria her death wound. 

The Russians turn to meet the Prussian foe. 

The Man in White, announced of old by Prophets, 

Advances, with all Russia at his back. 

Beneath the first wave almost overwhelmed. 

The Prussians barely make good their escape; 

To meet the rising tide about his borders 

The whole of William's army scarce sufficed. 

But now from France the tide is mounting high; 

Fleeing before this merciless array. 

Which he, before, had held in such disdain, 

He, known to all men as the mighty War Lord, 

Sought to escape the vision of his doom. 

And like a madman fled across his realm. 

23 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

Then^ in a little hamlet of Alsace, 
Retaken by our arras, the villagers 
Gathered together at the school, and stood. 
A death-like silence reigned, when suddenly- 
Appeared before their eyes; — Oh, glorious day! — 
Smiling and calm, the General in Chief, 
Whose master hand had wrought for them their freedom. 
Their hearts and his, all drunk with noble joy. 
Melted together in a common rapture. 
Then in a voice, tender as a caress. 
He spoke: "Henceforth forever are ye Frenchmen!" 
No more; but eloquence was never heard 
Which better could express his deepest thought. 
To these, so long beneath the tyrant's heel. 
These simple words meant that from that day forth 
They all should have the right to think free thoughts. 
To live in freedom on their fathers' lands. 
Freely to hail as brother every Frenchman, 
And that each household very soon should see 
Its scattered sons returning to the hearth. 

This young and very brilliant Normalien, twenty- 
five years of age, was killed under the following cir- 
cumstances, which are described in this letter from 
the director of the Ecole Normale: 

June 5, 1915. 

Lieutenant Leguy was designated to take com- 
mand of this halfrsection. He knew that his mission 
was a hard one; but full of confidence in his men 
and in himself, he felt equal to his task and never 
ceased to repeat: "To conquer without peril Is to 
triumph without glory." With admirable presence 



AT THE FRONT 

of mind and calm he organized his attack, and he 
himself had sandbags piled up like a stairway, so as 
to enable the men to get out more quickly ; no detail 
escaped him. With untiring activity he went every- 
where, encouraging one, explaining to another, giv- 
ing all a kind word. 

At last, at 14:35 o'clock, after a violent bombard- 
ment, the charge was sounded; it was the signal for 
the assault. A sharp fire greets our men; the re- 
volving cannon, the machine-guns spit without pause ; 
shells reach our line in volleys: it is certain death 
for any man who shows his head above the parapet. 

Lieutenant Leguy, however, climbs the slope, and 
calmly leaves the trench, his saber raised; his men, 
led by his example, follow him without hesitation, 
and this handful of brave men disappears in a cloud 
of smoke. . . . 

The most part are mowed down; one of them re- 
turns, his face bloody, and falls senseless in the 
trench. Lieutenant Leguy also returns : he is alone ; 
all his men have remained over there; but his mis- 
sion is not fulfilled: he is not wounded and he wishes 
to go back. He then asks for another handful of 
brave men, twenty men ; all those who are there raise 
their hands, and he sets out again with them, shout- 
ing : "Forward, my children, for France !" 

The wave of bullets mows down these volunteers 
like the first. Leguy still remains standing with two 

^5 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

or three men; he marches straight towards the Ger- 
man trench; he sees it full of Boches; he fires his 
revolver at them, and encourages his men to throw 
bombs and grenades. 

But such heroism could not obtain grace from 
death. After a short struggle, he fell, struck by an 
exploding shell. He still had the strength to drag 
himself to his trench, and after gathering together 
his failing forces to give his information to his cap- 
tain, and to tell him his fear of seeing the Boches 
appearing on our right, he breathed his last, crying: 
"Vive la France!" 

A comrade from Canada describes the war in the 
trenches in the following manner in a letter of 
December 20, 1914: 

Your cheerful and good letter of November 18th 
reached me last night, and I read it over and over 
again, so pleased I was to get it. 

I shall endeavor in this letter to give you an 
idea of what the war looks like as seen by "the fear- 
less warrior" I am trying very hard to be, but let 
me tell you first that words fail to describe or even 
give a faint idea of the awfulness and horrors of the 
present war. 

A word as to how our positions are built is neces- 
sary. For the last two months the war has been a 
war of intrenchments ; that is, both the Germans and 

26 



AT THE FRONT 

the Allies have fortified themselves in deep trenches 
in which they are invulnerable. These intrenchments 
are made up of three lines of defense. In the first 
ones the Germans and the French are so close to- 
gether that they can almost converse with each other. 
This has caused many funny incidents. For instance, 
we often read our French newspapers to the Ger- 
mans telling them of their disasters, and they read 
theirs afterwards telling us the German story. In 
some places the German and French trenches are 
not fifty yards apart. In this position no one can 
rest or sleep, for they must always be ready to fight 
on a second's notice. It is very hard and tiring. 

The second line of defense is about two hundred 
yards behind the first. In this position one has 
also to be ready on a moment's notice, but, instead 
of everyone watching as in the first line, sentries take 
their turn at guarding in shifts while the rest of the 
men can rest and sleep. 

The third position is about a mile behind the sec- 
ond. There, instead of living in trenches, one lives 
in houses, farmhouses, etc., as far as possible, so 
that it is much more comfortable. It is also possible 
to wash, which cannot be done in the first two posi- 
tions because of lack of water. 

The troops in the third position are kept for a 
case of emergency, to reinforce the first two lines. 
It is there that most of the troops are kept. 

27 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

In any one of the three positions one has to be 
always dressed, equipped, with his gun near him. 
It makes it very uncomfortable, as we carry a heavy 
load of cartridges (five hundred). I have not un- 
dressed since I arrived. 

Behind the third position are located the hospitals 
and the auxiliary services. 

The first two positions are made up of trenches 
built in three units. The first one is the trench itself, 
from which one can shoot and direct his fire against 
the enemy. It is open, about six feet deep and three 
feet wide. One shoots behind the protection of what 
we call in French crenaux, and is thus well protected 
from the enemy's bullets. In the forward wall of 
this trench are doors conducting by stairs to deep 
cellars, built eighteen feet below the surface of the 
earth. In these cellars the soldiers take refuge when 
under bombardment from the enemy's guns, and they 
are absolutely immune from the danger of the 
colossal explosions of the Germans' monstrous 
obuses. These cellars are only in the second and 
third positions, as the Germans cannot bombard our 
first position, which is so close to theirs that they 
would risk bombarding their own. 

Behind the firing trench are located shacks, houses 
built of straw, mud and timber, the roofs of which 
are at the earth's level. In these we live, sleep and 
rest. We do not live in the cellars, because it would 



AT THE FRONT 

be too insanitary, and it would take too long to get 
out of them in case of an attack, when seconds are 
worth hours. 

The intrenchments are not built in a straight line 
but in a broken line, so as to minimize the effect of 
an obus falling into any part of the entrenchment. 
It only kills a few men, whereas it would clean out 
a whole trench built in a straight line, with nothing 
to stop its force. 

It is useless to say that living in these shacks and 
cellars is most uncomfortable. When it rains, which 
happens often, they are filled with water and mud; 
we cannot make any fire for fear of showing our 
position to the enemy, and our food, which is cooked 
at the third line, is cold when it reaches Us, after 
having traveled a mile or two in the open air. 

If you add to this that we never wash, that we 
are covered with mud and dirt, that we are always 
under great nervous tension, that we hardly sleep, 
you will understand that after a week of this life 
we are thoroughly exhausted. We then get four 
days' rest at the third line, which is of great benefit 
to our health. 

A word now as to the region in which these tragic 
events take place. It is in the North of France, 
in vast plains where most of the French wheat is 
grown, flat, without trees, offering no shelter what- 
ever, and desolated with no horizon. To anyone 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

approaching our battlefield, nothing particular is to 
be noticed, except that this year the fields are not 
cultivated and seem to be full of big holes; but no 
sight of guns, soldiers, trenches ; everything is under 
the earth and cannot be seen even at ten yards' dis- 
tance. 

Being located near the sea, the plains are very 
misty and damp. It rains eight days out of ten, 
and although it is not very cold, we suffer very much 
from the humidity in the atmosphere. During the 
nights it is usually very dark. 

The struggle consists mostly in never-ending artil- 
lery duels. All day long and during the night one 
hears only the booming of guns, which shake the air 
and the earth. I must say that as far as the Germans 
are concerned, they seem to be very poor shooters. 
I have been in the second position for the last six 
days. They are sending us a copious lot of obuses 
and shrapnel all the time, and although many of 
my comrades, as well as myself, have had many close 
escapes from death, they do not succeed in killing 
more than two or three men a day, and wounding as 
many. And yet firing so many big obuses must cost 
them millions every day. 

It is under the cover of dark nights that the in- 
fantry, both French and German, make their attacks. 
The worst one I have seen took place about a week 
after I had arrived at the front. 



AT THE FRONT 

On that day the weather had been very windy 
and unsettled all day long. We had been bombarded 
very hard by the Germans. When night came, both 
the wind and the cannonade had abated. About nine 
P.M. I took my turn as our advanced sentry in front 
of the trenches of the second position. Just imagine 
a night as black as ink, a night worthy of Dante's 
Inferno, full of mystery from which the worst could 
be expected. One thing struck me when I took my 
post. Usually one could see during the night flashes 
of light, the explosion of obuses, the white light of 
electric projectors or the luminous fuses sent up by 
the Germans into the air, to enable them to discover 
the French patrols. It was like the most spectacular 
exhibition of fireworks. But on that night there was 
no light to be seen, nor were the guns booming. I 
perceived also in the sky what looked like a star, 
but grew brighter and dimmer and moved from left 
to right, as if making signals. This turned out to 
be a captive balloon. 

I thought this strange and unusual, and went to 
inform my lieutenant of what was going on. The 
lieutenant doubled the number of sentries, and ad- 
vised us to keep a sharp look-out, as he thought the 
Germans were preparing some bad coup, and indeed 
they were. 

I resumed my position, walking slowly up and down, 
trying very hard to see something in the dark night, 

31 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

but I could not see much. I could not help thinking, 
and this thought would insistently come back to me, 
that I was an actor playing the part of some hero 
in some dark drama like "La Tosca." My mind was 
busy amusing itself with this and other thoughts, 
when all of a sudden, without the least previous 
notice, a hideous light illuminated the horizon, and 
before I could catch my breath a hail of obuses fell 
on our trenches, working terrible havoc. The ex- 
plosion shook my body, surrounding me with flames 
and fire, while I could hear in the far distance the 
noise of an intense fusillade and terrifying shouts 
and cries, such as would come from a crowd of wild 
men. The Germans had gone to the assault of our 
first position. 

It was so sudden, so spectacular, so impressive 
that for a while, to use a vulgar expression, "I 
was scared stiff," and could not move. Then, moved 
by instinct, I ran to the trenches and made a general 
call to arms, and went to knock at the door of our 
commander's shack, calling him out, telling him of 
what had happened. By that time great excite- 
ment was prevailing in the trenches, the men were 
coming out of their shacks, seeking the position each 
one had to occupy in case of an attack. Officers were 
shouting orders that were unheard, while obuses were 
falling fast, making a thundering noise, and making 
worse the horrors of the night. Some men got 



AT THE FRONT 

wounded. Some got buried in the earth and mud 
thrown up by the explosions of obuses near about. 
After a while order was restored in the trenches, 
everyone occupying his position, ready to fight, hud- 
dling in the bottom of the trenches so as not to be 
hurt by the explosions of obuses, which were becom- 
ing more and more frequent, and by the storm of 
bullets passing over our heads. 

In the distance we could hear the echo of a ter- 
rible struggle between the Germans and our men of 
the first position. From the darkness of the night 
came the voice of our commander, "My boys, we 
shall have to go forward to the assistance of our 
comrades of the first line. I expect everyone to do 
his duty. Everyone shall go forward at my order." 
In answer the German artillery seemed to redouble the 
bombardment. There must have been at least six 
batteries spitting death and fire upon the short zone 
separating the second from, the first position — this 
to prevent us from going forward to reinforce our 
first position. 

Then came the order, "Forward." The field in 
front of our trenches looked like an ocean. Under 
the eifect of the terrific explosions from the German 
obuses, the earth was torn up and seemed to form 
waves of mud and dust, real waves with white caps 
of fine earth that was blown into our eyes and ears. 
The explosions were making a kind of artificial light 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

that was hideous, making things look unnatural and 
deformed, outlining their shapes as in a nightmare. 

The men hesitated. To leave their shelter in the 
trenches looked like sure and instant death. As far 
as I am concerned, never before had the sentiment 
of the irremediable hopelessness of my case been 
so impressed upon me. I thought my last hour had 
come. At the price of a great effort I regained my 
composure. Men were leaving the trenches, crawl- 
ing upon the ground, and I started also to go for- 
ward. 

The ground was soaked from the rain of the pre- 
vious days. We had not crawled forward ten feet 
before our clothes were wet through, and then it 
was such hard work crawling upon the ground full 
of holes, with the great weight we had to carry with 
us, that I was soon in a great state of perspiration. 
I could not tell whether the water or the perspira- 
tion drenched me most. I reached the barbed wire 
defense of our position, and going through I 
scratched my hands, which were bleeding and hurt- 
ing me much. At times the wind would blow and 
I would shiver from the cold; and all the time I 
would hear obuses whistling through the air. Every 
time I heard one the question would present itself 
to my mind, "Where will it strike the ground?" 
Several times they struck so near me that I was 
buried under the showers of earth. The noise of 

S4 



AT THE FRONT 

the explosions made my ears bleed. I noticed that 
obuses very seldom struck the ground twice in 
the same place, so I followed the plan of hiding 
myself in the holes formed by the one just exploded, 
then I would run to the next one and thus go for- 
ward. 

We had not made half of the distance when the 
news came that the Germans had pierced our first 
lines, and our men were retreating, disputing every 
foot of the ground. We could see the struggle and 
the Germans coming upon us. 

Then the order came that we should also retreat 
and go back to our trenches of the second position, 
as we would make a better stand there against the 
Germans, while reinforcements were coming to our 
help. 

And so we did. At the price of great pain and 
sufferings, and always under steady bombardment, 
we took our position behind the crenaux waiting for 
the worst. It was not twenty-five minutes since the 
attack had started. I was feeling much better, 
although shivering from the cold, my clothes being 
all wet through, my face and hands being covered 
with mud, which also filled my eyes and ears. 

Suddenly we heard a great noise behind us, a noise 
of chains, irons, wheels, of horses pulling hard and 
in great number, and of swearing, hurrying men. 
Before we had time to realize what had happened, 

35- 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

a thunderbolt rent the air. We could feel the heat 
of it. A deafening roaring shook the earth, while 
the displacement of air was so great that we were 
thrown against the forward wall of the trenches. | 
One of our famous "75" batteries had just arrived 
upon the ground and had started to make the Boches 
(name by which we call the Germans) dance! 

Oh, how I wish you had been there ! It was most | 
wonderful. I had heard a great deal about the 
superiority of the French artillery, but the most 
eulogistic compliments are not enough to tell the 
truth. Within ten minutes, one single French bat- 
tery had silenced the six German batteries, and with 
such a maestria ! ! The German obuses are certainly 
very redoubtable, they make a terrific noise and work 
destruction ; but ours ! It is frightful. They explode 
dryly, brutally, as if with anger. They seem hardly 
to have left the mouth of the gun when they explode 
with a dry quick effect, and for five minutes one 
can hear the debris they have created falling down 
upon the ground. 

One can hear the German obuses coming and 
whistling through the air for thirty seconds. Ours 
seem to get there ten times as quickly, and to go 
straight to their objective. 

To make a long story short, after it had silenced 
the enemy's guns, our battery directed its fire against 
the German trenches with remarkable effect. 



. AT THE FRONT 

By that time a battalion of chasseurs, who are the 
best men of our infantry, had also arrived upon the 
scene. They made a wonderful charge a la hayonette 
and drove the Germans back to their trenches, mak- 
ing many prisoners. The next day when we buried 
the dead, there were three thousand Germans and 
our loss was but two hundred. Such a disparity in 
losses is accounted for by the fact that they had to 
swamp our first line of intrenchment to get through. 

I was told the next day by a man who was in the 
first line that it was a question of shooting fast 
enough to kill them all! The Germans came to the 
assault of our first line in such great numbers that 
our men did not have time enough to shoot and kill 
them all, and thus were finally swamped. 

The whole attack lasted about an hour. After 
it was over our artillery bombarded the German 
intrenchments for over an hour, causing them, no 
doubt, further losses. 

I had to resume my function as a sentry until 
eleven p.m., but I enjoyed it, I assure you, watching 
our big obuses fly through the air, and witnessing 
the destruction they made. 

When I went to bed — of course there is no bed — 
I was so exhausted by the terrible moments I had 
lived through, that I hardly took the time to take 
off my wet clothes. 

I rolled myself into a blanket and fell upon the 
37 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

earth of our shack in a slumber so deep that nothing 
could have awakened me. 

Since then I have been in three more attacks, so 
I am getting used to it now and hold my own better. 
However, I shall never forget those anxious moments 
of the first attack. 



Letter of First Lieutenant B. of the Alpine Chas- 
seurs, describing his first battle. He was but twenty- 
one years of age. He has since been killed in Alsace 
after having obtained two mentions in the Orders 
of the Division and the Army for his bravery. 

My very dear Mother: 

You must have been much surprised latterly to 
have had so little news of me. Now that the storm 
is over, I can tell you that I spent five days within 
thirty meters of Mm. les Boches and that this prox- 
imity prevented my sending you any news. Here is 
what happened : On the sixteenth we found ourselves 
in the trenches of the third line, eight hundred meters 
from the Boches. The Major assembles the com- 
pany commanders ; Lieutenant M. returns and taking 
me by the arm, leads me up a little slope, indicating 
a wooded ridge about four hundred meters away, and 
says to me: "The battalion is ordered to take that 
ridge; the third and fourth companies will attack. 
The affair is for tomorrow afternoon." 

38 



AT THE FRONT 

At that moment I had a chill, and all day my 
heart was troubled. I prayed as I had never prayed 
before in my life, and in the evening my courage had 
come back. I slept all night. The next morning we 
were to be in the trench ready to move at half-past 
eleven; we ate rapidly and at five minutes before 
eleven I started to assemble my company. 

All the men were together and we were about to 
start, when directly over our heads an enormous 
bomb exploded, then a second and then a third. The 
Boches had found our point of assembly and were 
giving us a heavy bombardment. The men showing 
some nervousness I brought them back under shelter ; 
then turning about I found M. deadly pale, and he 
said to me : "I am wounded in the leg ; take the com- 
pany to the point of departure for the attack and 
report to the Major." I can assure you that at this 
moment I did not feel very heroic. Outside the bombs 
were exploding with a horrible noise, and the moment 
of attack was approaching. I marched my men along 
and halted them in a place of shelter. I then went 
to find the Major and reported to him. He said; 
"You are in luck to find yourself at the very outset 
commander of a company; to be acting captain at 
your age is splendid." I answered: "Major, I am 
not sufficiently experienced; I beg you give me a 
company commander." He replied: "Come, come, 
a little courage, you will see it is not difficult. The 

39 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

signal for the attack will be given you by Lieuten- 
ant S." 

I could but obey. I advanced the men as far for- 
ward as possible in the trench, and passed the word 
that I was taking command of the company. 

The French artillery was firing on the ridge which 
we were to attack. It was a fantastic sight. The 
220's went whistling over our heads and exploding 
over the Boche trenches within a hundred meters of 
us, making a horrible noise and thick black smoke. 
At half-past one the 75's began to fire. Two thousand 
bombs were thrown against the Boche position. It 
was an infernal din; uprooted saplings were car- 
ried a hundred meters away and thick smoke covered 
everything. 

Our machine guns began to take part. Suddenly 
the voice of Lieutenant S. called: "Ready! Third 
Company, forward!" Without a moment's pause I 
sprang out of the trench, shouting: "Come on, boys, 
forward !" The 75's had then increased their range. 
All the men followed me, and shouting, we scrambled 
forward at double time towards the Boche trench. 
I had my revolver in my hand. In the heat of the 
attack, I had distanced all my '^poilus^' and found 
myself thirty meters ahead of them. Suddenly, I saw 
a mound. It was the Boche trench, and at the same 
moment a bullet whistled by my ear. I leaped for- 
ward and I find a Boche, his gun still smoking in his 

40 



AT THE FRONT 

hand, with the Red Cross brassard on his arm; he 
drops on his knees, crying, ^'Pardon, kamarad^"^ and 
showing me his brassard, says: "Sanitdty sanitdf\ 
[Hospital Corps.] I go on with my men. We pass 
over the ridge, and we stop at two hundred meters 
from the crest as I had been ordered to do. The 
Boches were bolting on every side. Our artillery fire 
had so demoralized them that they had abandoned 
everything. We occupied all the Boche positions, 
picking up quantities of material, guns, machine-guns, 
tools; here and there dead Boches blotted the land- 
scape. 

But it was no time to jest. I get my men together 
and tell them : "Get to work and dig a trench there." 
I was astonished to find myself so calm. In front of 
us fifty chasseurs guarded the construction of our 
trench. Up to that moment I had had one man killed 
and twenty wounded. Suddenly, right in front of 
us a violent fusillade began; bullets whistled on all 
sides, and I saw the ''poilus^^ ahead of me return, 
calling, "Lieutenant, they are coming." It was the 
counter-attack. We jump into the trench scarcely 
yet outlined, and I command the men to fire. Two 
hundred meters from me I see the Boches coming in 
masses, shouting; I even heard the cry "Vorwdrts, 
vorwdrtsT^ All of my men begin to fire; the fusillade 
resounds; the Boches, throwing themselves on the 
ground, return our fire ; thousands of bullets go whist- 

41 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

ling by our ears, but I pay no attention. Suddenly 
the Boches rise and continue to advance ; we continue 
to fire ; the Boches, in panic, run away at full speed, 
leaving behind them quantities of dead and wounded. 

My men continue to work at the trench. I have 
them place in front of the trench a barricade of 
barbed wire taken from the Boches, and we spend 
the first night there. Note that I had with me only a 
sergeant. I did not feel very big. The Major had 
sent me a note in which he warmly congratulated me, 
and expressly forbade me to give up the position. I 
think that all my life I shall remember that night. 
The Boches were constantly firing on us, while dig- 
ging their own trench sixty meters from us. My 
men were on edge and I had a hard time to keep them 
from firing. In the night the Boches came again, 
but again were quickly repulsed. What a night! 
Frightfully damp, a flurry of snow and terrible cold, 
and overhead the sounds of the whistling bullets 
mingled with the strokes of the spades and picks of 
the Boches. The whole thing was impressive. 

Daylight came, and with it a frightful fusillade 
from the Boches. One of my men was killed ; another 
wounded. I had in all ten killed and some thirty 
wounded. We kept on working at our trench and 
connected it with the trench of the neighboring com- 
pany. During the morning someone comes through 
a connecting trench telling me that the Major wished 

4S 



AT THE FRONT 

to speak to me. I arrive at his headquarters. He 
shakes my hand, saying : "My boy, I am going to see 
what I can do for you; but I promise you, anyhow, 
to have you mentioned in the Orders for the Day, 
which will give you a right to the Croix de Guerre y'* 
and he adds : "All the officers of the battalion admired 
the way that you conducted yourself during the 
attack, and I am happy to congratulate you." 

You can imagine if I was excited! I assure 
you that it is easy to do one's duty, and I was 
not at all expecting to be congratulated. All the 
officers came to shake my hand. I felt covered with 
confusion. 

Now for something else. We spent the next four 
nights in the trench, and this morning I had my feet 
swollen and hurting horribly. I went to the relief sta- 
tion, where they found that my left foot was frozen, 
and my right was frost-bitten. They sent me to the 
rear, to a village, three kilometers away. I shall be 
here, it seems, for eight days. • 

You see, dear mamma, everything went well. It was 
surely your thoughts and your prayers that watched 
over me, and kept away the bullets. You can say 
that your son did his duty as best he could, and if I 
am happy to be named in the Ordre du Jour it is 
principally because of the pleasure that you, as well 
as papa, will feel. 

The battalion is now going to be relieved. I hope 
43 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

that my frost-bite will be cured when it goes on duty 
again. 

EXTRACTS FROM THE OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUES 

1. In Alsace, we have taken the ridges which com- 
mand the "Sudel" farm, and we have held all the 
ground taken. 

2. In Alsace, further details inform us that the 
south ridge of the "Sudel" farm, taken by us on 
Wednesday, constituted a formidably equipped re- 
doubt. We took there one bomb thrower, five 
machine-guns, some hundred rifles, shields, bombs, 
tools, and rolls of wire; telephone apparatus, thou- 
sands of cartridges and some sand bags. 



Here is another picture of the front, a picture of 
Christmas day, the anniversary of Him who said, 
"Peace on earth, good-will to men." A young theo- 
logical student in the ranks writes: 

December 25, 1914. 
I do not know how this day has passed with you, 
but here it has been somewhat sad; the nostalgic 
temperament of our Celts [he is a Breton among 
Breton soldiers] has got the upper hand to-day. 
Our cannons might thunder as they would and our 
mortars vomit their fire, all the noise failed to waken 

U 



AT THE FRONT 

our soldiers from their dreams. They were all think- 
ing of their dear ones left behind in the gray, sweet 
Armorican country. They were living over again the 
happy Christmas days of the past, the midnight 
masses celebrated with such warmth and spirit in 
spite of rain or snow, the return home to where the 
huge log was flaming on the hearth, the gay awaken- 
ing in the morning, and the joy of the children when 
they found that the little Jesus had visited their 
wooden shoes. All of this has been like an uneasy 
troubled dream. Still the Christmas Eve was beau- 
tiful. The rain had stopped and dry weather came 
on. The sky was sown with stars and the ground 
covered with hoar frost. At midnight the German 
soldiers sang in the trenches. One of our lieutenants 
stood up and sang, "Minuit, Chretiens." Our 
Bretons chanted their Christmas carols in the rude 
sweet tongue of Armorica, "Tarram Mandeleck" 
"Sing Noel." After the singing one of the Germans 
came out of the trenches with a lantern in one hand 
and a box in the other, shouting, "Don't shoot, com- 
rades, cigar — cigarette." He came halfway to our 
line and stopped. One of our officers replied that 
we were well supplied with cigars and cigarettes and 
that he might make other use of them. He returned 
to his trench and a little later the firing began. 

Don't be downcast thinking of us in the snow and 
rain, it's all part of the game. War is a test of 

45 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

character like others, and nations need suffering to 
keep them from the thoughtless life that lets the day 
slide by in ease. We know what it is to suffer here, 
but if we know how to bear the suffering, to receive 
it as God wills, we shall come out the stronger for 
it, tempered the better to meet all the tests of life. 
And if we must come to the supreme test to give 
our lives for France, believe me, not one of us will 
hesitate a moment. For myself since the beginning 
of the war I have held my life cheap; they call me 
reckless, but until now I have not received the slight- 
est scratch. Perhaps God doesn't want me yet, but 
if death is to come my prayer is, "Thy will, not mine, 
be done." 

Don't reproach yourself that you are too happy. 
You have a good soul and are doing others good. 
God made you that way, you should thank Him 
for it. You may rest assured that I do not forget 
you in my prayers, and I ask you, too, when you 
kneel at the altar to think of me and commend me to 
our Saviour, that He may make your friend, the 
little corporal, a willing victim if he is destined to 
die and a good priest if he is destined to live. 



A French jurisconsulte who has recently pub- 
lished an article in the Revue Generate de Droit 
International Public on Anglo-American arbitra^- 

46 



AT THE FRONT 

tion, is now on the firing line. With his great 
technical competence and with the moderation and 
solidity of character which is well known to all his 
friends and to specialists in his subject in every 
country, he writes under the date of May 4, 1915 : 

At the front we certainly feel that we are in 
danger. We hear the rifle bullets whistling and 
sometimes we are spattered with mud from the burst- 
ing shells, and even if we are called on to do little 
in reply, all that has a moral value. Still it is sad 
to have infinitely less asked of you than you could 
do. Think of it, for more than a month I have 
been helping build roads. My men work hard, but 
my own role is at present almost nil. Formerly I 
worked on fortifications. It was more dangerous, 
but much more of a military job, and I felt that 
my labor was much more useful. 

All this is enlarging the foundations of my ex- 
perience and jurisprudence and I think that my 
next course on the Rights of War will be one of 
unusual originality (if the German rascals allow 
me to give it). You know what reorganization of 
the material will be necessary. You know also how 
little regard the German military leaders have for 
the rights of nations or for the conventions signed 
by their government. I had an example of it the 
other day. The little town in which I am staying 
(I can't tell you the name of it) was bombarded. 

47 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

Perhaps the Germans thought that they had good 
military reasons for the bombardment, but in defi- 
ance of Article 26 of the Regulations of The Hague 
they did not give any previous notice of bombard- 
ment. The noncombatant population, surprised by 
the rain of shells, had no time to seek refuge. The 
effect of the bombardment was almost nil. An old 
man of seventy and a soldier were killed, one or two 
others wounded, some pieces of masonry knocked 
down, and holes plowed up in the air. But in spite 
of these slight results, it was deplorable as an ex- 
ample of the brutal method of the Germans in 
attacking without warning and in direct defiance of 
the international agreement which they made. 

These are facts which the jurists ought never to 
forget. I am collecting only those of which I have 
been the witness, knowing how careful one must be 
in accepting testimony. Well, I have in my pocket 
incendiary pastilles of the Boches, bags of which 
were found everywhere after the Battle of the Marne, 
and I also have seen a German bullet with the end 
cut into a cross with a very neat incision so as to 
make it into a dum-dum ball. 

The war lengthens, but the morale of our troops 
is unimpaired: 

Those who return from the war will be so sick 
of it that they will never fight again. I speak of 

48 



AT THE FRONT 

the Germans, for as to Frenchmen, liberty will always 
find plenty of defenders. They (the Germans) have 
left thousands of corpses on our line of march in 
Champagne, corpses mutilated in every fashion, arms, 
heads, remnants of human bodies, lie scattered about 
unburied, and those that are buried are so near the 
surface that the shells dig them up again. 

Still the morale of our men is good. When the 
moment for attack comes, young and old rush for- 
ward like tigers. When the battle is over they come 
back "all in," and two hours later you would find 
it hard to believe that these men who passed you 
nonchalantly with their pipe between their lips have 
so lately been heroes. Their conversation is typical: 
no fine phrases, no lyric passages, no boasting; their 
language is the simplest form, of expression filled 
with common slang and diminutives ; and this is true 
of men of all classes of society. 

Yesterday a comrade whom I had lost sight of 
since December, met me. He is thirty-eight years 
old and married. I asked him for news of this or 
that captain. "Killed," he said of one. "I saw him 
blown into the air in bits," he said of another. "He 
was plucked by rifle ball," of another. Of another, 
"He's gone dippy." "And you, my friend?" said I. 
"Oh, the humming-birds [bullets] don't find me at- 
tractive enough to light on." 

The man who would start to discourse on the jus- 
49 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

tice of our cause in fine language would be sent to 
the devil. We don't think about that any more. We 
have got used to living out of doors, to being ex- 
posed. Our bodies are accustomed to it, and our 
minds, after vainly seeking to estimate the duration 
of hostilities have grown resigned. When we get 
orders to move, we move without a word. We are 
equally confident of victory whether time or action is 
to decide the issue of the war. 

All said and done our morale is on a par with our 
task. We have bent to the task partly through 
necessity, partly by intuition. In either case it spells 
victory. 

A letter of June 24, 1915, from an artillery man 
tells how the enemy's trenches are taken: 

We are very busy at this moment. My poor 
captain spent last night (the fifth in succession) 
out of doors. He has not been at the cantonment 
since the eighteenth. As for me, it's the same old 
jig, as we say in military slang. We live a queer 
kind of life. Take yesterday for example; at six 
in the morning everybody was sleeping soundly in 
the safe shelter of the trenches, in spite of the firing 
nearly all night. At nine o'clock the whistles 
sounded, everybody was routed out and the firing 
began, with intervals of three to ten minutes between 
shots. This irregular fire is harder to conduct, but 

60 



AT THE FRONT 

ft is very effective in demoralizing the enemy. The 
shots now coming close on each other's heels, now 
separated by several minutes, keep the whole zone 
demoralized. 

The difficulty in this irregular fire lies in the fact 
that the irregularity is deliberate, and the men point- 
ing the guns have to be ready at any moment to 
sight the exact spot that the commander of the 
battery wants to reach. It's tiresome because we 
are all keyed up from the commander down. The 
slow firing lasts sometimes for two hours at a stretch. 

At half-past eleven it began to rain. We all lis- 
tened to the patter of it in our shelter. At neon 
we were eating our soup when all of a sudden the 
orders came and ninety shells were dispatched into 
the enemy's lines to paralyze an attack which had 
already begun. The attack ceased and we went on 
with our soup. 

Then we worked at the screens and the observa- 
tory. At three o'clock we were allowed some sleep. 
At six soup arrived, but with it an order to meet 
an infantry attack. We fired one hundred and twenty 
shells at regular intervals. A shot every ten seconds 
from each battery. The shells fell in the trenches 
as though dropped from a spoon and tore them 
badly. Three cannons of Battery 155 were trained 
on a blockhouse, which soon disappeared from view 
in a cyclone of fire and dust. Then we extended 

51 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

the fire and formed a barricade of cannon, under 
the protection of which the soldiers sprang forward, 
not one of them falling. One hundred, two hundred, 
three hundred meters and they were at the Boches' 
trench and the blockhouse. A bewildering scrimmage, 
and half the men came back dragging some gray 
bundles of rags, which we recognized as prisoners. 
Later we heard that we had taken two trenches and 
two forts with seventy-five prisoners. The German 
trenches were filled with corpses, swimming in blood 
and mud. 

The firing was continued until eleven o'clock in 
the evening in order to prevent a counter-attack, 
but in order to save ammunition we fired only one 
shot every three minutes for the whole battery. 
Everything was calm and we were sleeping when at 
one o'clock in the morning the counter-attack came. 
It lasted twenty minutes and the Boches withdrew, 
leaving a number of corpses on the field as a result 
of the storm that they had the impudence to draw 
down on themselves. We went back to bed and slept 
peacefully until eight o'clock. Finally the relieving 
party came and we got back to the cantonment for 
a breathing space. 

You can understand that in this kind of life we 
don't have much time for anything. Firing, working 
on the intrenchments, eating, sleeping, these are our 
main occupations, with a little washing and writing 

52 



AT THE FRONT 

on the side. We hardly have time to think, for our 
whole being is totally fixed on the single end of vic- 
tory. And it seems as if our end were reached. The 
Boches are melting away under our fire, for they 
will be massacred, but will not surrender. Above 
the aviators are flying incessantly, hindering any 
rush of the enemy on our position and keeping us 
informed of his position all the time. We have some- 
times six aviators in the air to one German who 
hovers at a distance, not daring to advance in the 
face of such superiority. At that there is almost 
nothing going on in our section. It is on the left 
that the real action is taking place. 

Louis G. 



THE NATIONAL HOLIDAY AT THE FRONT 

A card from M. L., July 14, 1915: 

We have all the rain that you could want in the 
sky and all the water you could want in the trenches. 
It's the regular fourteenth of July wetting. There's 
nothing extraordinary to report — we are beginning 
to live the peaceful life since the attacks of Q. We 
have the cannons to amuse us in the daytime, and 
the fuses to light us up at night, and with all com- 
fortable apartments underground. What more 
could we ask to make us happy .^^ 

53 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

A card from A. H. : 

The action is lively in our region. The Crown 
Prince sees that even if Verdun is not far away, the 
road to it is utterly impossible to take. Let us hope 
that he will be convinced of it before long. 

m * « « « 

And the commanders.? Here is one of them 
sketched in a lively fashion in the letter of a young 
officer, L* G., lieutenant of reserves: 

The general of our army corps has just made 
an address to us. He is a tall, thin man, with an 
alert expression, a round head on a long neck, short 
hair, black but grizzled, a clear bright eye under 
dark lashes and a prominent forehead. His nose 
is straight above a heavy gray mustache, his jaw is 
square and firm. In very simple words, he told 
us the lessons he had learned from these seven months 
of war. He spoke of the intoxication of victory, 
and said that when two combatants faced each other 
in a mortal conflict, both nearly spent with exhaus- 
tion, the man who could hold out an hour longer 
was sure of the victory, and this crucial hour, he 
said, depended neither on munitions nor arms, but on 
the moral factor alone. And the morale depended 
on the officers. "Be optimistic," he said, "before 
everything and in spite of everything." He told 
us of an engagement in which his division alone stood 

54 



AT THE FRONT 

the attack of five brigades (two and a half divi- 
sions), which threw themselves on him one after the 
other. That his men were able successfully to repel 
this attack, which lasted five days and five nights, 
with the opportunity of only two hours' rest a night, 
was due entirely to their morale. 

He gave us a solid basis for our optimism too. 
"Joffre will conquer when he wills and where he 
wills, but he wants the victory to cost as little as 
possible." 

It was a fine lesson that he gave us. 



And the men? A Frenchwoman writes on the 
eleventh of August, 1914, after the furloughs were 
granted to the men at the front: 

The children are playing with their little friends 
De B. under the surveillance of the orderly of Mon- 
sieur de B., who fell in one of the first battles. The 
orderly is a brave soldier from the North of France 
who cannot pass his leave of absence at home because 
the Boches are occupying his town, so he has come 
to spend it with these children of Monsieur de B., 
to whom he is devoted. He wrote during the winter 
to Madame de B.: "I have done my duty to the 
utmost. I am sure that my general is watching me 
from above and in doing my duty I am still obeying 
him." 

55 



II 

IN THE HOSPITAL 



A 



II 

IN THE HOSPITAL 



SOLDIER writes to his aunt in Washington, 
October 15, 1914: 



I am writing from the house of the Sisters of 
Compassion, where the wounded are cared for. Per- 
haps you don't know that I was wounded. For more 
than a month I was at Grenoble, where my regiment 
was charged with the defense of a section against 
a possible attack from the Italians.^ I must confess 
that it seems rather ridiculous to me to protect a 
city that no one had any intention of attacking. A 
ministerial circular called for the names of terri- 
torial officers who wished to join the active regi- 
ments. I had my name inscribed. I fought in the 
Department of the Somme. On the morning of the 
twenty-fifth of September in less than an hour's 
time I was thrown into the thick of the conflict in 



iThe letter was written early in the war when it was by- 
no means certain that Italy would not be held by the terms 
of the Triple Alliance to fight on the side of Germany and 
Austria-Hungary. 

59 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

the first rank, and for my baptism of fire was ex- 
posed to a perfect rain of bullets and shells. I was 
far less disturbed than I feared I should be, and I 
explain it that on account of being an officer I had my 
men to look after. I had about two hundred under 
my orders, for the lack of captains set me in com- 
mand of the whole company. We had to fight all 
the following day too and that night repulsed a 
counter-attack by the Germans. Four nights in suc- 
cession we slept in the trenches or in ditches. In 
spite of counter-attacks and continuous firing we 
fell asleep as soon as we had a few free moments. 
I have a rank which will waken all the strength in 
me if affairs get worse. My insomnia of the old 
days is completely gone. 

In spite of our hardships great and small, 
everybody is happy, full of enthusiasm, and pledged 
in word and deed to the destruction of our enemies. 
Wonderful spirit which lasts under fire for days and 
days! 

You've heard of their marmites : there are two 
sorts of them. One kind produces a whirlwind of 
white smoke when it bursts at an altitude of about 
twenty-five meters. They are not very terrifying, 
but the other kind, much larger, burst often at the 
level of the ground with a horrible effect, emitting a 
cloud of yellowish smoke. Both of them sound like 
rattling iron. You'd think they were coming at you 

60 



IN THE HOSPITAL 

on a curtain rod. With a little experience you know 
whether these shells are headed straight for you or 
not. And you can even tell when they are headed 
for you whether they will explode near you or far 
off. It furnishes us with a nice little game of wager. 
The twenty-eighth of September, at half-past two 
in the morning, a villainous shell of the yellow variety 
burst over our trenches less than a yard away. As 
several shells had preceded this one, we were all 
waiting in the proper position, huddled together as 
much as possible in the trench, our heads protected 
by a sack — like many of the officers I had a Tyro- 
lese sack. The noise of the bursting shell was so 
frightful that I thought I was cut in pieces. I found 
out later this is the common experience of men when 
a shell bursts near them. My part in the explosion 
was six wounds, viz., a piece of shell in my left leg, 
three pieces in my left thigh, a piece in my back, 
and a shrapnel bullet just above the left knee. I 
was carried by my devoted soldiers to the ambulance 
more than four kilometers away, was treated and 
then taken to the train. We were stopped at Montdi- 
dier. I was losing a great deal of blood and almost 
at the fainting point. I stayed in the ambulance 
from September 28 to October 7. When I reached 
Rouen I had a fever and could not move. But here 
I am in a first-class clinic, scientifically and tenderly 
cared for. 

61 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

On November 15, 1914, from the Schneider Hos- 
pital, far back of Laval, a brother writes his Odyssey 
from the city of Romans to the Vosges with the Alpine 
chasseurs : 

My fortune was to stay for seventy hours in a 
trench. Twenty-four hours of the time in the rain. 
During the last afternoon we counted eight hun- 
dred shells, and the strange thing about it was that 
after such a pelting we had only one slightly wounded 
man. That day, the tip end of a bursting shell 
weighing about a pound fell just at my feet. I kept 
it for a while in my kit-bag, but had to throw it 
away on a forced march one day to lighten my load, 
I have had at various times a number of trophies 
taken on the firing line: German helmets, grenadier 
cloaks, belts, guns, cartridges and so forth. But I 
have dropped them all along the march rather than 
carry them further. At Etial alone we found enough 
material to equip five hundred men. There was a 
pyramid of helmets and new shoes in front of the 
church. We gave the shoes to the townsmen. Our 
company was the first to enter Etial on the heels 
of the retreating Prussians; and I had the satisfac- 
tion of tearing down with my own hands the placard 
bordered with the German colors which threatened 
with death anyone who annoyed the German soldiers 
or removed that notice. 

But to return to the Vosges. After the glorious 
62 



IN THE HOSPITAL 

Battle of the Marne the Germans retreated in haste 
toward the frontier. Our hussars and chasseurs kept 
only twenty-five or thirty kilometers behind them all 
the way. The Germans on this retreat left an enor- 
mous quantity of munitions behind them, and the 
stragglers were made prisoners. One day while we 
were halting by the roadside we saw two African 
chasseurs bringing in two German prisoners. One 
of them smiled and gave us the military salute. 
When they reached the tent company all of a sudden 
I saw a French soldier dart out into the street, 
throw both arms around this prisoner and kiss him 
on both cheeks. It was his Alsatian brother who 
had been drafted into the German army. . . . 

We have gone into action northeast of Rosieres 
in the Department of the Somme. We are in the 
midst of great fields of beets in the Picardy plains. 
We had to march under fire from enormous German 
guns which were beyond the range of our cannon. 
The 22nd Regiment was a little ahead of the rest 
to the right, when the Germans tried to turn us on 
the left. It was a terrible moment; shells from one 
hundred and twenty guns bursting over our heads, 
bullets from the front and the left, and in case we 
gave way, the 22nd Regiment would be cut off and our 
artillery exposed. We lay down flat on the ground, 
and while in this position I was struck by a bullet. 
I threw away my knapsack and leaning on my gun, 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

crawled eight or nine hundred meters to find a 
stretcher. If I met the soldier who gave me that 
bullet I would salute him, for he was doing his duty. 
In their rage at having to retreat they devastated the 
region through which they passed with incredible 
ferocity. I have no reproaches to make against 
the Germans on the field of battle, but in their treat- 
ment of our eastern and northern country^ they 
have forever covered the name of Germany with 
disgrace. 

A soldier writes from the Grand Palais the follow- 
ing undated letter : 

I have had four serious wounds and two accidents. 
My left shoulder has been dislocated and my right 
arm broken. I lay on the ground all night long 
absolutely unconscious and losing a great deal of 
blood. I do not yet know how I came to. We were 
fighting like lions, we Zouaves of Tunis. Within three 
hours we had made seven bayonet charges. Dirty, 
unshaven, covered with mud, our white trousers 
spattered with blood, we were handsome all the 
same. For we had made these German barbarians 
see the worth of the African soldiers, whom they 
called "savages." We hated to retreat, but we were 
proud to check their advance as we did. I was about 
to be advanced to a lieutenancy when I was wounded. 

Can soldiers who advance against us as they did 
64i 



IN THE HOSPITAL 

over the bridges of the Sambre behind Belgian women 
and children as screens, still claim to belong to the 
civilized world? 

Well, I want that gold lieutenant stripe and I'm 
going back to get it at the point of the bayonet. 
I shall be proud to give a little more of my blood 
and even my life, and with what joy, if I can only 
help in punishing these barbarians ! 

P. L. 



As soon as they are in the hospital, however wel- 
come the rest, the one thought of the men is to get 
Avell enough to join their regiments. J. T. writes 
from Lyons on March 26, 1915: 

I am starting for my depot and from there I shall 
go to the front. I was wounded a second time in the 
leg, as you know. The wound was quite slight, but 
I have been very sick. My strength has come back 
now completely and I have vanquished the acute 
attack of bronchitis which I caught the day I was 
wounded. I spent the following night on the battle- 
field. 

So I am well again and going back to my place 
in the orchestra. I hope this time to be in the grand 
celebration. Are we downhearted ? No ! No ! 
Doubtless I shall be assigned to some new regiment, 

65 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

and therefore I cannot give you my exact address 
on the eve of my departure. 

My days at Lyons have been melancholy ones. 
The enforced repose of a long convalescence far from 
the active scenes at the front has worn on my nerves, 
but I got new energy the day I learned that my 
return to the colors had been finally sanctioned. 

Spring is coming.' The trees are getting green 
and already the last white gulls have left the banks 
of the Rhone in their flight to Switzerland. One could 
easily yield to the emotion created by the poetry of 
nature if the thought of one's friends fighting there 
at the front did not come to recall one to the tragic 
but glorious reality. 

Good-bye, I am returning to the fight filled with 
new courage and new ardor. Good-bye, more heartily 
than ever I say — ^tili after the victory. 



W^hat word from those who nursed the wounded? 
This from Lyons, from a hospital in which the great 
surgeon Oilier worked once, and in which the great 
surgeon Carrel has been working later : 

The Americans would be still more strongly de- 
voted to the cause of the Allies if they really knew 
how the Germans are conducting this war. I was 
astounded to see how the land for whose scholars 

66 



IN THE HOSPITAL 

I have the greatest admiration can reconcile its won- 
derful intellectual developments with a morality 
worthy only of the most degraded barbarians. It is 
certainly proven that intellectual and moral develop- 
ment do not go hand in hand; still it is surprising 
to see how a race that has produced such admirable 
characters as Emil Fischer, Ehrlich and so many 
others can remain morally at the level of the brutes 
of the Stone Age. It is almost incredible. It shows 
us that the Kultur which the German professes to 
mediate to the world is only worth throwing away like 
a rotten apple. I earnestly hope that with Europe 
torn to pieces the United States will grow rapidly 
enough to direct the evolution of the world toward 
an ideal which shall satisfy not only our intellectual 
and scientific demands, but our moral aspirations as 
well. 

The author of these lines could not stay at Lyons ; 
he went to the front bearing a message to general 
headquarters in a region where the shells were still 
falling. 

Here the men who are really in touch with the 
war behave admirably. The old valor of the race 
comes out. One would think them the resurrected 
soldiers of the Grand Army. I hope that the younger 
generation will come out of this war completely 
virilized. 

67 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

A little later he writes from Compiegne, a short 
distance from the enemy: 

Never have I had the opportunity of meeting men 
of such varied types under conditions which brought 
out their characters so sharply. Under such circum- 
stances as these, one learns to appreciate the real 
value of men, and it seems to me more and more 
true that mere intellectual development is a very 
insignificant part of an individual's life. 

Just now my life is very interesting and not a 
little difficult because of the number of roles I have 
to play at the same time. I have to be director of 
an organization which must function in actual prac- 
tice better than any other of its kind, and at the 
same time I have to be the experimenter in the labo- 
ratory divining new things. These two occupations 
are incompatible. Besides, I have to spend most 
of my time traveling at express rates from place to 
place. Sometimes I am at Paris in the quiet office 
at the Ministry, and the next day I find myself in 
a muddy ambulance of the advanced trenches, or even 
nearer still to the firing line. Here it seemed as if 
the whole character of the French race had been 
modified. The men have recovered the warlike spirit 
of their forefathers, they have the smiling courage 
of the heroes of the First Empire. 

The day before yesterday we lunched with 
68 



IN THE HOSPITAL 

fifteen officers In a chateau within range of the Ger- 
man cannon. The table was strewn with violets. 
The dining-room was decorated with flowers. Wine 
flowed freely and the guests were much more quiet 
and contained than in the times of peace. Only 
a few minutes after lunch we were standing on a 
hill surrounded by the thunder of the French bat- 
tery, which was answering the German fire. Every 
man that I have seen seems to be in the finest 
physical and moral condition. They are living in 
trenches but in the open air. Their health is ex- 
cellent, their organizations perfect, and every man 
is confident that he is marching on to victory. . . . 

Compiegne is tranquil only in appearance. The 
barriers which surround us do not isolate us from 
the outside world. I see about as many people here 
as in New York. Furthermore, I am traveling about 
a great deal in automobiles, either along the front 
or back and forth from Paris. All that takes up 
my time. Sometimes we meet with deplorable acci- 
dents, for only a few minutes' ride from Compiegne 
brings us out into the region of the shells. I have 
lost my best chauffeur and one of the others is 
disabled. 

Our hospital is full of wounded men. Thanks to 
the surgeons of the ambulances of the advanced line, 
I get the kind of patients I want. My colleagues 
are all working hard and faithfully. Dr. D., of 

69 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

whom I have spoken to you, has discovered some 
substance which seems to be able to sterilize flesh 
wounds. If our present experiments confirm our 
former observations we shall have made important 
progress in the treatment of wounds. D. is a re- 
markable man, and I am in hopes that our researches 
will result in important discoveries. 

P. S. — I am sending you a copy of the report 
from headquarters signed by General D. It will 
give you a true idea of the way the Germans are 
conducting this war. 



Ill 

IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 



Ill 

IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 

Chambre des Deputes 

Lamaguere- p. Labarthe- 
Inard (Haute Garonne) 

8 October, 1914. 

YOU can imagine in what anxiety we are living, 
but how could we be otherwise but firm and 
courageous, my wife and I, when everyone, I say 
even to the poorest peasant, is furnishing us a superb 
example of self-denial and heroism? You who have 
a soldier's soul would be rejoiced to see the calm 
courage, the coolness and the zeal of the recruits 
and the troops, whether in formation or at the sta- 
tions. All through our cities of the South, which 
are so ardent and often so excitable, there is not a 
sign of excess nor a discordant note. It is truly a 
fine awakening. 

Our 17th Corps was decimated in the earliest bat- 
tles of the war and our region here acquitted its 
cruel debt to the country with noble generosity. 
From the economic point of view our population 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

has not suffered much, neither have raw materials 
been lacking. I am most happy to hear from you 
that the sympathies of the American people are 
with us. It is a great weight on our side of the 
balance. 

The world has been too patient with Prussia. 
Read over again the speeches of Thiers, the Schles- 
wig-Holstein affair and the history of the days of 
1852. It is the same story over and over again of 
cynical lies and brutality. I have had experience 
with some of this policy in the Moroccan business. 
And I assure you that at times the cunning rascality 
of Berlin has perverted public opinion even in 
France. But now the eyes of the world are being 
opened, and civilized humanity realizes that the de- 
struction not of Germany, but of the intolerable 
Prussian hegemony is essential to the world's wel- 
fare. 

Jean Cruppi, 
Former Minister. 



A Frenchman writes to an American friend from 
Paris, November 15, 1914: 

Our France, our dear, beautiful France, has shown 
herself wonderful in this war. Pardon my enthu- 
siasm, but when one speaks of a mother one is 
allowed to show pride in her. France has shown 

74j 



IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 

herself wonderful because she has shown herself as 
she is in reality, and not as she has allowed herself 
to appear at times through sheer negligence. At 4 
P.M. on the first of August the entire French people 
were welded in a single hour into the most perfect 
union. You would have to see it to realize it. There 
are no more parties in France. The revolutionist 
Hervcj but yesterday a man without a country, is 
shouting, "Vive la France!" The most rabid social- 
ists of yesterday are at the front, dying under the 
common soldier's cloak or the officer's uniform. Not a 
newspaper indulges in partisan vituperation. In the 
great committee which has charge of the interests 
of the nation and whose members bring their private 
resources to the altar of the country, you will find 
side by side revolutionists and monarchists, radicals 
and progressives, bishops, pastors, rabbis and free- 
masons. There is only one bloc now in France — a 
bloc much more solid than the ordinary political 
one made of an amalgam of opposing wills and prin- 
ciples reconciled in appearance only. This bloc is 
one that has really existed all the time, namely, the 
soul of France which we thought was divided be- 
cause it was covered over with the veneer of politics. 
The veneer disappeared on the first day of August, 
and revealed the soul of France. Oh, how little the 
people understand us who believe in the vanity, the 
inconsistency and the volatility of Frenchmen ! 

75 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

Instead you will find here a cool, resolute, confi- 
dent seriousness, a robust optimism pervading all 
classes of society, sacrifices generously accepted, no 
lassitude, an iron determination to have done with 
the war, a loyal upright attitude towards our 
enemies, as towards our dear friends of England and 
Russia, a profound respect and an admiration with- 
out bounds for heroic Belgium, a thousand examples 
of private devotion to the fatherland in every form, 
and back of it all, resting on the unshakable confi- 
dence in our cause, the life of the nation goes on 
calmly in its work and, more than formerly, in its 
prayer too. 

The German military machine, powerful as it is, 
will not prevail against the allied forces, strong in 
the conviction that their labors are founded on the 
right. The struggle will be long, we know, it will 
be hard too, but the German will break his wings 
in it at last — that we know too. So we look forward 
to the day of his exhaustion and defeat. I trust 
that you will not doubt the outcome in your country 
which has so freely given us its sympathy and shared 
with us the love of the truth. Believe me, we recipro- 
cate fully this cordial sympathy. 

You will find Europe much changed and frontiers 
altered, my dear friend. Believe with us that these 
changes will be favorable to our cause. Let me 
repeat again — certain that you will spread the truth 

76 



IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 

about if you hear any assertions to the contrary — 
that France at this moment is perfect in union, 
courage, strength, confidence, faith, truth and honor. 
She has men, she has faithful allies, she has time, 
she has heroism to spare — and she will conquer. 

G. M. 

From a Frenchwoman after the Battle of the 
Marne, September 15, 1914: 

The enemy is repulsed. He is in flight, God be 
praised! Our hearts, so long filled with anguish 
at the steady advance of the barbarians, are now 
bursting with hope. The Germans have trodden 
our soil, they have plundered it, devastated it. What 
matters, now that they are departing, driven by the 
French armies ! Our sacrifices will not have been 
in vain. All the men who have fallen and who shall 
still fall may rest in peace ; and those who weep their 
loss will not have added to their grief the humiliation 
of a France conquered, wretched and flouted. 

Joseph T. has been wounded. He has borne it 
with manly courage and is in hopes of getting back 
to the army soon. Madame A. [a colonel's wife] 
has cut short her vacation to the North and has 
returned to Limoges to work for the Red Cross. 
Marie de F. writes that her mother is dying and her 
husband has gone back to the service. They have 

7T 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

had no news of their son, whom you perhaps were 
the last one to bid good-bye at Paris, when he started 
out in all the pride of his new uniform of sub- 
lieutenant of Hussars. Captain R. d'A. and one 
of the sons of General 0. have died on the field of 
honor. The list of our dead will be long. 

France, dear France, so wounded, so cruelly 
robbed of her soil and her sons, will yet emerge vic- 
torious from this terrible crisis. We are under no 
illusions, but have the greatest confidence. Without 
doubt we still have a great deal to do to conquer 
the invader and drive him from our land. But this 
first success, the victory of the Marne, is a won- 
derful start. It has given our soldiers a zeal and 
ardor which will not flag. Let us not cease our 
prayers, and let us be ready to make every cour- 
ageous sacrifice possible. 

We are defending our cause valiantly, but the 
enemy is splendidly organized and intrenched on our 
soil. It will be hard to dislodge him. I see by the 
papers that the bombardment of the Cathedral of 
Rheims has stirred a feeling of righteous indigna- 
tion in every nation. There is good reason for it 
too, for never was there so wanton and useless a 
piece of barbarism perpetrated. It is fit to rank 
with the massacres of Louvain. 

The letter continues on September 30, 1914, after 
the capture of Antwerp: 

78 



IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 

It is raining and the dismal skies add to our deso- 
lation within. To think of this new disaster. The 
papers keep us in suspense with vague news and 
reports. Poor heroic Belgians! They have fought 
with all their strength, but how could they stand 
this iron tide? I recall the pretty little country so 
calm and peaceful which you and I have traveled 
over together in the good days of the past. It is 
frightful to think what has happened to it. And 
now it is our soil that is to suffer again. It is our 
own beautiful Paris that they are aiming at. Ah, 
how I should like to be back there ! 

Your mother received a letter from the R.'s this 
morning. Those brave people stayed on in their 
home and lived through the frightful hours of the 
battle. They went down into the cellar at first, but 
came up to aid the wounded who were brought to 
the house. They heard the cannon and musket fire 
for hours. ... 

I had a letter from Miss H. yesterday telling of 
the atrocities committed on the poor refugees. She 
saw them herself. It is frightful. . . . 

October 9, 1014. 
Oh, the never-to-be-forgotten hours of anguish and 
suspense! We seize the papers and devour the dis- 
patches. They are upon us, trampling down the 
poor villages to reach us and crush us. They are 

79 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

implacable, mad in their hate and fury. But we 
are resisting them magnificently. Oh, the sacrifices, 
the blood, the misery! 

November 7j 1914. 
Our race 'has proved that it is neither degenerate 
nor changed from the Frenchmen of former days 
who knew how to conquer. How they fight and die, 
our little pioupious! Our generals are splendid. 
We cannot doubt the final success of our armies. 
God grant that it may not be too long delayed, for 
it is heartrending to see so many suffer and die. 
We shall preserve the anguish of this hour in our 
hearts for ever, and our victorious fatherland will 
bear the marks of these tragic days. The dead will 
not return with victory, and whole families will be 
plunged into mourning for life. Oh, what a ter- 
rible thing war is, and what a responsibility rests on 
the shoulders of those who provoke war! 

The letter concludes on "November 20, 1914, from 
a little country town: 

We devour five or six newspapers a day. We go 
every morning and sometimes in the afternoon to 
read the dispatches. At night there is a crowd 
around the bulletins. Some kind soul volunteers to 
read the dispatches aloud so that everybody can 
hear them. There is a great stir in the barracks 

80 



IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 

here. Some of the troops are getting ready to go 
to the front, and others are starting on their way 
singing songs. It makes you sad to think they are 
going, so many of them, to their death. . . . 

I have already told you of the death of my brother, 
an artillery captain. He was killed near Rheims. 
Another one of my brothers, who had fought in 
China, re-enlisted as captain of the Zouaves and has 
just been killed in the North. He was picking up his 
wounded men one evening after a hot scrimmage in 
which he had been victorious, when a stray bullet 
struck him full in the breast. My third brother, 
sergeant in the light infantry, has been wounded. 
My sisters-in-law are bearing up nobly. But my 
parents, who went to Paris on the approach of the 
Germans, are inconsolable. They are trying to bear 
their grief stoically, believing that their sons died 
happy in dying for their country. 

C.J. 



On January 12, 1915, a member of the French 
Academy writes: 

We live on as you saw us. Madame B. is working 
for our ambulance, my son is at the ministry of war, 
and I am doing what I can to serve my country 
with pen and speech. Army and people alike are 
filled with confidence. There is no sign of boasting 

81 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

but a calm, firm resolution to hold out to the bitter 
end. The campaign of terror inaugurated by the 
Germans has failed to frighten us. 

E. BOUTROUX. 

The distinguished philosopher, Henri Bergson, 
writes from Paris to a friend in America on the 
twenty-seventh of May, 1915: 

The resolution to conquer has never been stronger; 
in France than it is at present. The disposition of 
our soldiers, as indeed of our entire population, is 
admirable. They have all been reconciled from the 
start to the most extreme sacrifices, with the clear 
consciousness that it is not only the cause of their 
fatherland but that of humanity and civilization as 
well which is at stake. Under these conditions the 
result of the conflict cannot be doubtful. But what 
terrible sacrifices it will have cost ! 

H. Bergson. 

Alt s3l ^1& J3L £3L 

TP" TfF 1* •X* I* 

P. A. wrifes on the eighteenth of April, 1915: 

The war with its preoccupations and activities 
absorbs every minute, every second. I have been 
organizing hospitals, manufacturing powder, collect- 
ing stockings and underwear for the soldiers, writing 
appeals in the papers, making speeches on the plat- 
form, hurrying through the battlefields of Flanders 
in automobiles to install ambulance stations and 

82 



IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 

secure the prompt removal of the wounded. The nine 
months that have passed seem more like nine hours. 
It seems only yesterday that we were on the road to 
Albert among our bleeding soldiers. And here we 
are on the same road again to-day. It is the same 
struggle, the same spectacle, but thank God we are 
more confident of victory to-day. 

I saw a night battle at Nieuport a little while ago 
which would have interested you. It was a superb 
moonlight night. I was in a ruined church which 
was paved with new tombstones. The bullets flew 
through the church grazing the pillars and chipping 
the corners of the walls. I have written an article 
about it and will send you the magazine. Why 
weren't you here? All our generals are filled with 
confidence, they believe that the enemy is pretty well 
exhausted, but still capable of dogged resistance and 
desperate attacks. Anyway they cannot break our 
lines now. 



As the war continues its economic demands grow 
clearer. Men are called from the front to work in 
the factories. Engineers, chemists, and other spe- 
cialists are summoned home for their expert knowl- 
edge. They are sorry to leave the front, but their 
comrades write them from the firing line saying that 
they are glad to have them where they are. Whether 
in the shop or at the front they are serving their 
country, where they can serve her best, and there is 

83 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

no distinction of merit between men who give their 
best service to France. On the twenty-eighth of 
June, 1915, P. G. writes: 

A short time ago I read a letter from George in 
which he says that he is uncomfortable because he 
is at the rear in a position of safety. I want to give 
him and all of his companions who for various rea- 
sons are not at the front, my opinion on this point. 

The present war is not like the wars of the Em- 
pire, depending upon force alone. It is a war of 
men and munitions. Nothing distresses me more 
than to think that our coffers are not full. Now, to 
have munitions we must have able men and we must 
have money. Goodwill is not enough. Without 
experts to manufacture them our munitions of war 
will be inferior and even worthless. We must have 
money too, and to that end our commerce and in- 
dustry must be kept up. Now, in my judgment all 
those who on account of age or of infirmity or for 
reasons of professional skill, stay at home and do 
their duty to the extent of their powers, are as 
deserving as we who are at the front. We even have 
periods of rest that they do not. No, there are good 
Frenchmen and bad Frenchmen only — ^but the latter 
are extremely few, 



IV 
THE FUTURE 



IV 
THE FUTURE 

IT is the certainty of victory that gives us our 
confidence, and what gives us this certainty of 
victory is the profound conviction of the in- 
justice of the attack against us and the barbarity of 
our aggressors. M. Pottier, curator in the Museum 
of the Louvre and member of the Academy of In- 
scriptions and Belles Lettres, writes to a friend in 
Boston : 

The war that they are waging against us is a 
war of extermination, into which no consideration 
for humanity or civilization enters. Except for the 
political consequences that might result, I am per- 
suaded that the Germans would have no scruples in 
destroying the public buildings of Paris, including 
Notre Dame and the Louvre. I have done my best 
to safeguard the scientific treasures with which you 
are familiar, but still I must confess that they are 
not sufficiently protected against a deliberate and 
sustained bombardment. You would find it hard to 
recognize our poor galleries and showcases all 

87 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

emptied of their contents. The Ambassador of the 
United States has been in to look at them. 

Since we have seen the manifesto of the German 
"intellectuals," signed bj names which we have long 
been accustomed to honor, we know that the scholars 
and artists of Germany are marching in the train 
of the men who burned the library of Louvain, bom- 
barded Rheims, and shattered the sculptures of the 
cathedral which ten centuries of war and invasions 
had respected : the men who tried to fire Notre Dame 
de Paris with bombs, and killed children playing in 
our streets. No civilized nation in the world's his- 
tory until to-day has given us the astonishing spec- 
tacle of men of science justifying and glorifying 
murderous attacks made contrary to the laws of 
nations and even in defiance of treaties signed by 
their own diplomats. 

In addition to these brazen attempts to justify 
the outrages that they cannot deny, they enter a 
hearty and peremptory rebuttal of other attempts 
which are amply proven by official witnesses. "It is 
not true that . . . it is not true that" — they re- 
iterate. How can men schooled in our scientific 
methods so demean themselves as to sign statements 
the truth of which they have no means of controlling, 
and on the matter of which they have no precise 
information, being far away from the scene of 
action .f* 

88 



THE FUTURE 

I am glad to say that only five of the fifteen cor- 
responding members and associates of our Academy 
of Inscriptions, and only four of the twenty mem- 
bers of the Academy of Science signed the manifesto. 
It seems then that even in Germany some few men 
are left with enough confidence to refuse their assent 
to such a criminal procedure. We are glad to believe 
it. Be assured of this, we are fighting to save the 
world from the Prussian corporal, from that spirit 
of hatred and proud domination that has invaded 
and contaminated the whole of Germany. We are 
combating the spirit of disloyalty and falsehood that 
has characterized every move of the Germans in this 
war: viz., the preparation for the war by a system 
of espionage and by purchases of land which have 
been going on for years; the tricks in battle, such 
as putting French uniforms on German soldiers in 
order to decoy our unsuspecting men into an am- 
bush ; the convoy of military stores under the flag of 
the Red Cross ; the transportation of men and muni- 
tions into the trenches on stretchers; the ships dis- 
guised as Russian boats in order to enter the harbor 
and torpedo the unsuspecting enemy. Never, never 
will we conduct a war in such fashion, repugnant to 
all nations with a sense of honor and loyalty. We 
still believe that the moral factor is essential to give 
our soldiers the conviction that they are defending 
a just cause with honor. 

89 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

Permeated with the idea that she is fighting for 
the defense of rights and liberties of the nations, 
France, with her good friends and allies is confident 
of the future. She knows that victory belongs to 
the nations that are just, calm, courageous and 
patient. She knows that all these qualities are hers. 
The man best qualified to speak on international law 
not only in France, but also, even by the consent of 
the Germans themselves, in the world, wrote from 
Bordeaux to an American friend in November, 1914 : 

I am deeply pained by this war as a man and a 
jurist, as well as a Frenchman. What good are all 
our grand efforts if they are to result only in 
"scraps of paper"? Do not believe that I am anxious 
only for the war to end. In spite of all the evils 
that war brings in its train, the Allies must fight 
on until the might of Germany is completely hum- 
bled, and due reparation is exacted from her; only 
then can we have a durable peace, and then perhaps 
can we begin to talk of international law. 

Louis Renault. 



France has received too many expressions of gen- 
eral sympathy from the Americans to allow her to 
doubt the feelings of the greatest of the neutral 
powers. In the letter of M. Pottier to a friend in 
America, which we quoted a few pages above, are the 
following lines: 

90 



THE FUTURE 

We can ask only for moral support from your 
country, but we may count on her for that. We have 
read with grateful emotions the words of your ex- 
President Roosevelt, which are so encouraging for 
us. We have understood the meaning of President 
Wilson's curt and dignified reply to Emperor Wil- 
liam, when the Germans, whom the Allies accused of 
using dum-dum bullets, brought the impudent coun- 
tercharge of their use by the French. The Americans 
well know which side is fighting for the right and for 
the respective treaties. The example of heoric Bel- 
gium points the way of duty. 

While the German propagandists were exerting 
their zeal in pleading an unjust cause before the 
neutral nations, France judged that she had but to 
rely in dignified reticence on the sound judgment 
and sense of justice prevalent among the American 
people. M. Pottier writes from Paris on the tenth 
of April, 1915: 

It is asked in a friendly way why the French do 
not strive more actively in America against the prop- 
aganda made by the partisans of the Germans. 
Compared with the quantities of letters, papers, 
prospectuses, and the views with which neutral 
nations are being swamped and inundated, our very 
modest communication and pamphlets attract but 
little attention. 

I quite understand this: and often among our 
91 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

friends we have been a little disturbed by this dis- 
proportion. Already efforts have been made to 
counteract this, and several associations have been 
organized to make clear to those in other countries 
the position we have taken in this great European 
struggle. . . . 

One of my Italian colleagues, who from the be- 
ginning had courageously taken sides against Ger- 
many, wrote in La Tribune of Rome the fifth of 
February : 

"I have expressed my sentiments of invincible 
horror for the torture inflicted upon innocent and 
heroic Belgium. I have expressed also, notwith- 
standing the deluge of German newspaper clippings 
which every day heap up the waste basket in my 
office — I have expressed my absolute conviction that 
this conflict was let loose by the agreement and by the 
deliberate wish of Austro-German imperialism. 

"Immediately open war against me was declared 
by my honorable colleagues and by the German 
press. I saw pour in torrents into my house, like 
discharges of a famous *450,' not only insulting 
articles from newspapers of the Goths, but personal 
letters of protestation, of rage, of threats." 

This is something of which the French could never 
be accused. We would take care not to imitate the 
indiscreet and stupid measures, which, far from 
obtaining the result expected, either exasperate or 



THE FUTURE 

make smile, according to the disposition, those who 
are the butt of these persecutors. Such a lack ci 
moderation and of tact will lead always to the quick 
confusion of propaganda. Ne quid nimis, said 
Latins : Excess in everything is a fault. 

For another reason: Does it at all concern us 
to answer back in ceaseless protestations, as do the 
Germans? Certainly not. Facts have spoken for 
us. What could we add? Is it not enough to recall 
the facts and to confirm them? One can well under- 
stand how our adversaries feel the need of pleading 
their cause. What a mass of assertions they must 
prove before the world! 



When American sympathy for the justice of our 
cause was freely expressed on the dastardly sinking 
of the Lusitania, the American papers sent to the 
front were hailed with joy by the Frenchmen who 
had come from America. They immediately converted 
them into a new kind of projectile and threw them 
into the German trenches. A young Frenchman who 
had lived eight years in this country writes from the 
trenches to a friend in New York, June 24, 1915 : 

Can you guess what it is to spend twelve days 
and twelve nights, most of which are nuits blanches, 
in first line with very little, if anything, to smoke? 
I don't think you can. So I will not attempt to 
tell you how I felt when I received your four boxes 

93 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

of Oxfords. To be sure, many of my friends were 
in the same plight, and as selfishness is unknown in 
war time, they, too, had a glorious smoke on you. 
Many of them had never tasted American cigarettes, 
but I can assure you they found a real delight in 
puffing them. We usually have plenty of tobacco 
and everything else, and if this is the worst war men 
have ever seen, it is perfectly true that soldiers were 
never taken better care of. The fact that we ran 
short of tobacco was due to an unlooked-for alerte 
which woke us up in the middle of the night while 
we were au repos. In less time than it takes to say, 
we were going to an unknown destination. Talk 
about thrills — that's where you get them — and as 
strange as it may sound to an outsider, we do love 
them. If you recall what has been going on for 
the last few weeks, I think you can safely guess 
where we were bound for — 'nough said. All the piou- 
pious that had a whack at them want to join me in 
thanking you. My friends in New York and else- 
where have sent me about a dozen boxes of one hun- 
dred Rameses, too, but I never received them, except 
one. 

Reading over your letter makes me think how 
fortunate you are. Not that I regret having come 
— for I never would have dared show myself to 
anyone had I stayed — but simply because this is 
no life. I sometimes think how foolish men are to 



THE FUTURE 

have to resort to these mad orgies of wholesale mur- 
der and pillage in order to settle their differences. 
Talk about progress and civilization! Why, we 
might as well destroy the hypocrisy of it, since it 
cannot save us from these calamities, which already 
involve millions of homes. Why not set back the 
clock a few centuries and revert to the simple habits 
of the caveman. This may sound like strange talk 
to you; no doubt it will. But what do you think 
happens to the gray matter, when thousands, hun- 
dreds of thousands of shells are hurled above one's 
head? Although I do know something happens, I'm 
sure I don't know what it is. And what about the un- 
told misery caused by such monstrous bombard- 
ments? No one is better able to know it than I. 
Sometimes I get so damned mad to see in what 
savage way the Germans conduct the war that I wish 
to turn in my brassard and get back my rifle. I've 
tried it twice now, but the major wouldn't let me. 

Fortunately this trench warfare won't last for 
ever, and I do earnestly hope that we shall soon be 
able to measure ourselves in the open with ces mes- 
sieurs and have it out like white men should. Of 
course they are not friends of the assault a la 
baionnette. I don't blame them either, for although 
they can run pretty fast — I've seen them — they can't 
get away from our gro guards. 

Some three weeks ago I threw a bunch of American 
05 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

papers into their trench and waited for results. I 
wish you could have heard them groan and shout 
and swear; they were nothing short of raving mad. 
Evidently someone among them could read English, 
anyway, the Tribune cartoons were eloquent enough, 
especially the one you sent, also the one representing 
Count von Bernstorff addressing his country's sym- 
pathies to the American public over the Lusitania 
dead, entitled "The Crowning Insult.*" Have you 
seen it.?* It must have struck them harder than any 
shell ever did — at least judging from results. 

J. B. C. 

Another young Frenchman from America, a lieu- 
tenant, writes from the hospital where he lies severely 
wounded the following reflections on the character 
of the war and the combatants' views of the duty 
of neutrals: 

I am indeed much better, though not very well as 
yet. I have been so near death and seen such ter- 
rible things, I have so often despaired of coming out 
of the struggle alive, that this new life here away 
from the battlefield seems a dream. In spite of the 
sufferings and great losses of men, we are full of 
hope and courage. We know we must triumph and 
victory will be ours. France will not die. It is neces- 
sary to the world, above all to the world of thought, 
your world and mine. This war is the enemy of 

96 



THE FUTURE 

thought ; it is the enslavement of all the truly spirit- 
ual powers to a work of tyranny and destruction. 

One day, I hope, I shall tell you of some of the 
things I have seen, and then you will understand 
that Germany has only begun to spell the words, 
"humanity," "civilization," "personal dignity," 
"progress," based on principles of "liberty and jus- 
tice." At first I could not be bitter towards the 
Germans. I thought the military party alone could 
be held responsible for the unspeakable cruelty of 
the soldiers. I said to myself, "The people are 
blind, they have been misled. They believe themselves 
attacked and threatened in their very existence. We 
must only free them, free Europe and her German 
people as well, from the German military cast." 
But facts do not allow me to make that distinction 
bona fide any longer. The Germans know what they 
are doing. They have been trained to think, to feel, 
to speak as their masters. They iionor, venerate, 
follow them and have one faith — ^the absolute good- 
ness of the German nation, the sacredness of its 
mission to a corrupted world; faith in a gospel of 
military strength which will make of all peoples 
either the slaves of Germany or willing subjects. 
We all must either love them, or, through fear, re- 
spect and honor them. They will give other nations 
independence if it harmonizes with the interests of 
the Empire, and if not, that independence will be 

97 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

sacrificed on the altar of the German god. They have 
Germanized the very heavens. They have lent to 
the Being who stood for love and justice sentiments 
unworthy of a Turk! I am not speaking without 
knowledge. I have seen them victorious and de- 
feated. I have seen them in battle and in prayer. 
I have seen them from Prussia and from Bavaria, 
and all breathe the same spirit of selfish and arro- 
gant pride, of hatred, of domination at all costs and 
by all means. I have seen the maimed children, the 
slaughtered women, and the tortured old men. I 
have seen poor French prisoners crucified naked on 
the edge of a trench to frighten their comrades, and 
more and more. No mercy, no chivalry, no honor; 
all sacrificed that the Kaiser may rule over the land 
of our forefathers and bring to it the blessings of 
superior morality and Kultur! 

On January 10, 1915, a naval lieutenant writes to 
his sister: 

France faces with the utmost calm the probability 
that the war may last another year or more. We are 
resolute and prepared. We look for victory entire and 
absolute, not the annihilation of the German race, as 
our enemies accuse us of saying, but the annihilation 
of the military caste which is brutalizing the race. 
3?his war on war is the noblest cause possible, and the 

98 



THE FUTURE 

people who are with us in it will be forever ennobled 
by it. 

Things are going well. The Germans retreat only 
foot by foot to be sure, but the unexpected duration 
of the war makes them lose daily the benefit of their 
long and careful preparation, while it permits us 
and our Allies, the English, to provide the men and 
supplies which we lacked at the start. Prussia is 
under no illusion about this ; the German newspapers 
prove it. I was at dinner a few days ago under 
General X's tent with several officers of the general 
staff. When the General spoke of the time that was 
still needed for France to win a complete victory, 
there was a scene of intense emotion, and all those 
fine soldiers cried in spontaneous patriotism, *'Yes, 
yes, we will conquer or die !" 

On July 18, 1915, an officer of reserves writes: 

You ask me what the opinions are in this region 
on the subject of the winter campaign. I think I 
can tell you. When the winter campaign was men- 
tioned men shrugged their shoulders at first. 

After reflecting on all the pending questions people 
here have gradually come to the conclusion that a 
winter campaign is necessary (1) to allow Russia to 
regain her lost ground, (S) to allow the Allies to 
secure a decided advantage over the Boches in the 

99 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

supply of munitions, and (3) to allow the Allies to 
make the blockade more stringent against Germany. 
People have come to this position not with 
joy but with firm deliberation. We realize that 
we are where we are in this war because we were 
too little prepared. The Germans foresee every- 
thing, even the impossible. Let us learn to be as 
prudent as they, but with the ingenuity of the 
Frenchman. Then our victory is certain. And if it 
turns out that the winter campaign is not needed, 
there will be no reproach upon us for having pre- 
pared for it. 

At the beginning of July a Frenchwoman wrote: 

We are having fine summer weather. The country 
is beautiful, but how sad ! No youth, no songs in the 
fields, no joyous laughter; we shall never laugh again 
in France, I fear. How can we? The younger gen- 
eration will forget these days perhaps, but ours will 
carry to the grave the burden of this bloody drama. 

Even after the temporary retreat of the Russians, 
French energy did not flag. Nobody was under 
an illusion as to the length of the war, but the morale 
continued unimpaired. The officers and soldiers at 
the front are allowed from time to time to return to 
the rear, and their presence always dispels gloom and 
melancholy, leaving only hope in the heart. One of 
the civilians thus cheered by their presence writes on 
July 19, 1915: 

100 



THE FUTURE 

Warsaw is captured. They will turn back on us. 
But let us have confidence. Our soldiers are won- 
derful, so full of hope and courage. Still, when one 
sees them, one knows what they have endured. They 
all have a tragic look, but they are filled with energy 
and zeal, even though they are under no illusion as 
to the possible duration of the war. 



"A little child shall lead them." One of the chil- 
dren of France wrote near the beginning of the war 
these lines of prophetic confidence: 

We shall come out victorious and France, that most 
beautiful nation, will resume its peaceful, pros- 
perous life. War will yield finally to peace and men 
will live happily forever. 

FlESIlE. 



V 

LAST LETTER 



LAST LETTER 

To THE Editor of the French newspaper Le 
Matin of September 8, 1915: 

THREE weeks ago I arrived in your country 
which I had left on the fifth of September, 
1914. At that moment I was carrying away with 
me the great spectacle of your mobilization. This 
solemn and magnificent rising of the manhood of a 
whole people had left in my mind the image of a 
quasi-religious spectacle in its splendid solemnity. 
During the mobilization I had many talks with the 
soldiers and from these conversations I had derived 
a great deal of hope and comfort. Ever since I 
left you, I have thought so often of these brave 
people, who without noise or boast but in silent dig- 
nity went forth to a war of national defense and of 
justice, that I was most anxious to see them again 
and at the same time to revisit the several hundred 
Alsatian and Belgian refugee children that some of 
my compatriots and I had b^en able to gatiier 

105 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

together at the beginning of the war, and who with 
many others since collected are to-day scattered 
about in colonies throughout the various depart- 
ments of France. 

Thanks to the courtesy of Mr. Delcasse, I was 
allowed the rare privilege of traversing the roads 
through the army zone between Paris and Nancy, 
and went up to the first lines. What I saw gave me 
an impression as strong and as favorable as that 
of the mobilization. All these men who went away 
with such calm and resolution remained in the same 
state of mind, with perfect confidence in the final 
victory of France and of their chiefs. Everywhere 
I saw signs of the old gaiete frangaise. Nowhere 
did I hear the slightest murmur of complaint 
Everyone was doing his duty. The war might well 
be very long and very painful, but the result was 
sure. Already they had acquired the moral supe- 
riority, and if ever the enemy came out of his 
trenches his defeat was certain. 

I saw villages in Lorraine utterly ruined and 
destroyed by the Germans. I well remember one 
day spent at Gerbeviller. The women and the old 
men told me: "We have returned. It was indeed 
necessary to replant the fields and to take up life 
again," and in this village, completely burned, where 
I learned that more than one hundred civilians were 
shot, everybody was smilingly at work. The fields 

106 



LAST LETTER 

had been tilled as perfectly as usual and the crops 
were beautiful. Scattered about here and there, 
throughout the fields, were little red patches of 
flowers, surmounted by a white cross, under which 
the defenders of Lorraine slept. One who has not 
seen it cannot understand how a visitor is moved 
by the spectacle of this strength of soul. 

But what is most painful for us Americans in all 
this is the proof that this war was a war of sys- 
tematic destruction, a war, as my friend Mr. Emile 
Boutroux said to me in its beginning, conducted 
with scientific barbarism. It is not merely that 
drunken soldiers pillaged the villages. Here and 
there a house remains standing, evidently spared 
because it had borne a certain mark. The rest 
were systematically burned. Everything was done 
with discipline and order. 

We are, at home in the United States, somewhat 
in the same state of mind that France was before 
the war, believing in humanity, in justice, in pity, 
and we have to see the traces of this methodically 
calculated carnage and destruction — ^we have to see 
this country so systematically devastated, as the Ger- 
mans of Caesar's time could not have devastated it, 
to believe in the reality of the things which we read 
in our newspapers. We are apt to think that there 
must be a large part of exaggeration in all this and 
that Prussian militarism should not be judged by a 

107 



WAR LETTERS FROM FRANCE 

few isolated atrocities. Now I know the truth and 
will not hesitate to repeat it again and again. 

One man who had witnessed the assassination of 
the hostages of Gerbeviller, another who had seen 
the murder of the Mayor of Senlis, told me of these 
things in accents of simplicity and sincerity that 
bore out the official reports. They told me of the 
cynical propositions, the brutal jests with which 
the German soldiers carried on their enterprise of 
devastation and murder and there was in their re- 
citals so much simplicity, loyalty and candor that 
little doubt could remain in one's mind. 

When in the face of such an enemy, unchained, 
after a year of war, one returns to find France 
serene and without anxiety about the ultimate result 
one understands that if man is stronger than nature 
by his intelligence, he is stronger than injustice 
by his morality. 

All these things seen at close range convince us 
Americans that France can never be vanquished; 
that she retains the same greatness of soul that has 
persisted through the centuries since the barbarian 
invasions; that stronger to-day than she has ever 
been, she will, after the war, be more respected and 
more admired than she was during her greatest 
centuries of glory. 

Frederic R. Coudert. 
(1) 



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